



t* ^3 €> -4 



^ 'T * o 

r7,4 * • * • t * o ;V * 

*%•** - s^E-A' . 

** J ^V v % *^8)lPV v/> *%> °* 

■* A ,*} "A ' /*^ * 

,** l .E‘*A'"'^•■■■ ~ ' 




V s * 

V v\Lr 


S, 

O /Ty 

<* Vy T 

A 

■* 

v «i 

<>» t *>• 

>- 

* 

'WfliJKF ** 

>1 ^ * 
>v V- - 

A a. / 

*■ * t 

■> **> 

1 ^ \v 

^ V 

'VV'* 



■o* /.'- 

V v 
\V </> 


© /IN , 

O ^ 

. - -'°v : E'<- 

-ta v •aVa; * 

z </> <^V © 

^ ** v % '.tHf*" 4 $*% » 

, , v o.d' A ^ V^V ,-,**’ ^ 

’’ ^ / -\E>V c.0^ v* l lL«,%' # * 

a s. ,ssN\\W y u * zz/fTpp-, * *P 

<f y^, C *«. Jr fll//y / ^~t f 

o <y 

♦ i * 

N O’ ’Tj, ^ 

♦ ->* % ', 




^ y>- 

"O^jp % ° 

<\r \ tr n 'i* • V \ \ *\ 

’ °'. ©. V X s'" ',. 


‘■* 7 T’*'\^ 



, s u.' * 

^ . <b y 

c°VL^ 


‘*b 0 N 




'<* 




b, <-v 


K^ V° 


x°b. 




* 
o 

V ; ^’*V° 

^ C^ - JV\\/ 7 «X/// 1 . « Y^, ^ 


y o» v * A v 'b ’ r */ = "° r A .0^ 

a\ t 0N Cif ^ ** Q v v * V ' ® * ^ 

A ■>'*$&*>.'* ° 0 ^ 

'. *b o ' 1 •' ffijJil^ - p » 

* J ^ 

0_ #- ~ o • rl* •/ n f\ <-> , 

* 811 * A <£> * 3 N 0 ’ ^0 ©x » 

Y * 0 1 <b v s s ^ ^ , 9 ^* * ^ * ° >" ^O 

Gk <* _ V ^Olf^ v» . **\ *^ t»- <p C^ <* xO 

r <b> aV * c* * rKV^^A r ^ 

* A A O >4 ■, K r- '•>► <A> -AW »K //>) O 



\ 0c b. 



’W*” •% r Sr Y 

. V I 


\V * 

p <4 J o » X 
r\ v o 1 -- 8 -? <;> 

o° + 

i * trr/ * t * -Kp_ A' 




* ^ A * jAW Al ° b- ^ * 

- ^MM ° ** <& * 

o 5 0 •{// \\y *, A> 

*> * ■$? V> , - 

C^* ^ ■v Q*' ~~ t> ^ ± 

/ „ . 'fc <\ O * , < S <CV ^ ^ 0 n L ^ 

*' c 0 N c * -*o ‘ o^ v* 1 " * '<# A l 

*P -- y p « 




0 v X 



^ V 


.... :'J 

0 “ ,0° ^o * 

vy *> a0 V * Y * 0 ^ C'. 

^ <\r + 

°- %*r : * 

- .A <V - 

C J 0 * k* X 0 N C J, ' 1 * * S S J$P 

'*■ ^ 0° ^ 



*b o'* ; 


'»,,' ''4 " . o '- 1 

i • " f,. ^} K .''0, 













WHEN I WAS A BOY IN 
INDIA 


CHILDREN OF OTHER LANDS BOOKS 


Independent Volumes With Characteristic Illustratioi 
and Cover Designs 12mo Cloth 

There are many books about the children of other countries, u 
no other group like this, with each volume written by one who u 
lived the foreign child life described, and learned from subseqtn: 
I experience in this country how to tell it in a way attractive to Am i* 
can children — and in fact to Americans of any age. 

WHEN I WAS A BOY IN CHINA, By Yan Phou Lee 
1 WHEN I WAS A GIRL IN ITALY, By Marietta Ambrosi 
WHEN I WAS A BOY IN JAPAN, By Sakae Shioya 
WHEN I WAS A BOY IN GREECE, By George Demetrios 
WHEN I WAS A BOY IN PALESTINE, By Mouse J. Kaleel 
WHEN I WAS A BOY IN BELGIUM, By Robert Jonckheere 
WHEN I WAS A BOY IN RUSSIA, By Vladimir Mokrievitch 
WHEN I WAS A BOY IN ROUMANIA, By Dr. J. S. Van Teslaar 
| WHEN I WAS A GIRL IN HOLLAND, By Cornelia De Groot 
| WHEN I WAS A GIRL IN MEXICO, By Mercedes Godoy 
WHEN I WAS A GIRL IN ICELAND, By Holmfridur Arnadottir 
! WHEN I WAS A BOY IN PERSIA, By Youel B. Mirza 
WHEN I WAS A BOY IN SCOTLAND, By George McP. Hunter 
WHEN I WAS A BOY IN NORWAY, By John 0. Hall 
WHEN I WAS A GIRL IN SWITZERLAND, By S. Louise Patteso 
WHEN I WAS A BOY IN DENMARK, By H. Trolle-Steenstrup 
WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA, By Satyananda Roy 
WHEN I WAS A BOY IN TURKEY, By Ahmed Sabri Bey 


LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. 
BOSTON 

























WHEN I WAS A BOY 
IN INDIA 


BY 

SATYANANDA ROY 

M 


ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 



BOSTON 

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. 















Copyright, 1924, 

By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co, 

All Rights Reserved 

When I Was a Boy In India 



Printed in U. S. A. 


IRorwooO lpr cee 

BERWICK & SMITH CO. 
Norwood, Mass. 


APR-2'21 

©C1A777788 





PREFACE 


Born on the eve of the Bhratridwitiya, 
the brother's festival, according to the 
Hindu calendar, I have felt more and 
more my indebtedness to my sisters. The 
passing of years, instead of defacing that 
sense, has intensified it to such a degree 
that I can realize the beauty and the 
utility of such a festival. On this occa¬ 
sion, it is said that Yama, the Lord of 
Death, takes a vacation that he may accept 
his sister Jamuna’s invitation to a feast. 
So, following her example, every sister in 
our Hindu homes observes a beautiful 
practice. She puts with the tip of her 
finger a small piece of sandal-wood paste 
on her brother’s forehead. Along with it 
she breathes a prayer: “As Yama, the 
Lord of Death, is deathless, so may my 

brother, also, be deathless!” She blows 

5 


6 


PREFACE 


the conch shell, the herald of auspicious 
moments. In case the brother is absent in 
a different part of the country, she puts 
on the wall a mark, intended for the 
brother. 

If the brother is younger than his sister, 
he makes his pronam (touching the feet 
with one hand and placing it on his head). 
If he is the elder, the sister, in the same 
way, salutes him. She makes gifts of 
food, spices, and clothing. This simple 
but impressive ceremony is performed 
year after year in the homes of India. 
Such a ceremony marks the intensity of 
relationship between brothers and sisters 
in Hindu homes. 

Several centuries ago a Hindu princess 
(of Rajputana in central India) sent a 
silken cord to the then Mohammedan 
emperor at Delhi, Sultan Babar. She 
was in great danger, and in the absence 
of a brother needed a brother’s help very 
badly. That rakhi (the silken cord), 
symbolic of respect and affection between 



un-ri^i* 











PREFACE 


7 


brothers and sisters, was mightier than 
peace and good-will established between 
rival houses even by the sword and the loss 
of many lives. The Mohammedan prince, 
upon learning the meaning of the silken 
cord, responded immediately to the call 
for help from a Hindu sister—a sister by 
adoption. He did not shrink from help¬ 
ing her because of her difference in birth, 
language, and religion. Above all else 
was the appeal of brotherliness, of sisterli- 
ness. Therein lies the hope of the new 
and greater India that is to be—the India 
of the boys and girls of to-day and to¬ 
morrow. 

These two beautiful customs, repre¬ 
sentative of real India, have inspired me in 
the preparation of the following chapters 
on my boyhood days in India. The ex¬ 
periences related here are all true. India 
is such a vast country that manners and 
customs prevailing in certain parts may 
not be the same as those in other sections. 
Notwithstanding the great difference in 



8 


PREFACE 


customs and manners usually ascribed to 
life in India, there has been an underlying 
unity through all her history. It is ex¬ 
tremely hard for any outsider to observe 
and appreciate that unity, which is real 
indeed. I have left many things unsaid. 
I have no intention of evading them. 
Limits of space stand in the way. I have 
tried to tell the facts without distorting my 
vision by looking through cheap colored 
glasses. 

I express my indebtedness to my 
friends, Mr. David M. Cheney, of the 
faculty of Tufts College, and Reverend 
Arthur T. Brown, for their valuable help, 
suggestions, and criticisms. 

Satyananda Roy. 

Boston , September, 1923 . 


CONTENTS 


I. 

The Birth of a Hindu Child 


13 

II. 

Childhood Days . 

• 

• 


34 

III. 

School Days . 

• 

• 


68 

IY. 

Boyhood Memories 

• 



78 


1. Street Cries of Calcutta 



78 


2. Snake-Charmers and Bope- 
Dancers .... 


86 


3. Sadhus and Fakirs 

• 



89 


4. The Bear Girl . 

• 



99 

Y. 

Games and Sports 

• 



106 

YI. 

Food and Dress . 

• 



116 

YU. 

In Town and Country 



127 

VIII. 

A Calcutta Market 

• 



137 

IX. 

Marriage Preliminaries 



144 

X. 

A Hindu Wedding 

• 



161 

XI. 

Hindu Temples . • 

• 



162 

XII. 

Domestic Customs 

• 



173 

XIII. 

Hindu Festivals . 

• 

• 

• 

183 

XIY. 

Indian Villages . 

• 

• 

• 

188 


9 




CONTENTS 


10 

XV. Indian Cities . . . .199 

1. Benares.204 

2. Agra.207 

XVI. My Trip to the United States 

of America .... 214 






ILLUSTRATIONS 


Satyananda Roy 

The Brother’s Festival . 

Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

6 

A Scene from the Mahabharata 

• • 

38 

The Statue of Buddha at Buddhagaya . 

44 

Hindu Sadhu , or Religious Mendicant . 

94 

Street Scene in Delhi 

• • 

104 

Banyan Tree in Madras 

• • 

126 

Keshub Chunder Sen 

• • 

168 

A Procession on the way to the Mandir 
at Giridhi. 

182 

Benares and the Ganges River 

• • 

202 

The Taj Mahal 

• • 

208 

Rabindranath Tagore 

• • 

216 


11 


WHEN I WAS A BOY 
IN INDIA 


CHAPTER I 

THE BIRTH OF A HINDU CHILD 

‘ “ Do the Hindus throw their babies 
into the Ganges? ” 

The question was put to me, several 
years ago, by a group of school-children 
when I was walking through a street of a 
small Pennsylvania town. The same 
question has been asked again and again, 
not only by little children, but also by 
grown folk, who would have been sur¬ 
prised and shocked had I, in turn, asked 
of them a question as sensible: “ Do In¬ 
dians still scalp palefaces in Pennsylvania 

woods? ” In every case my answer to 

13 


14 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


such a question, of course, has been in the 
negative. 

The burning of child widows (Sati or 
Suttee) on the funeral pyre of their hus¬ 
bands and the throwing of babies into the 
Ganges are pictures taken from the pages 
of the past history of India. We, in 
India, do not hear of such incidents as 
often as the children and the older people 
do in the United States of America. I 
lived to manhood in my country before 
coming to the States; and since my ar¬ 
rival in this country I have kept in con¬ 
stant touch with the course of events in 
India. Never have I heard of babies hav¬ 
ing been thrown into the Ganges in re¬ 
cent times. 

My father and mother were bom and 
brought up in orthodox Hindu homes. I 
was born in the outskirts of the city of 
Calcutta, the largest city in India, with a 
population above one million. 

Calcutta is so often described by Eng¬ 
lish writers as “ the city of palaces,” that 


BIRTH OF A HINDU CHILD 


15 


one is likely to paint an extremely highly 
colored picture of its wealth and magnifi¬ 
cence. The district in which I was born 
had very few palatial buildings. We had 
an ancestral home of over one hundred 
years in another part of the city. That 
quarter still has a number of commodious 
houses owned by rich men. Most of them 
are big landholders, owning extensive 
properties in parts of India. 

Shortly after my birth, my parents re¬ 
moved to the old house which was near the 
river Ganges. People in India like to live 
in the neighborhood of the Ganges and 
other sacred rivers . 1 In Hindu houses the 
water of the Ganges is sprinkled several 
times during the day for purifying pur¬ 
poses. Such water is stored especially in 
earthen or brass jars. A bath in the 
Ganges is supposed to wash away one’s 
sins. People rise from their beds in the 
early hours of the morning, four o’clock 

1 The Ganges, the Jumna, the Godaveri, the Kaveri, 

etc. 


16 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


and after, so that they may proceed to¬ 
ward the river for their early morning bath 
or ablution. Some of them sing or repeat 
the different names of gods (with all at¬ 
tributes) on their way to the ghats —the 
bathing-steps. The river Ganges which 
rises from the Himalaya Mountains flow r s 
into the Bay of Bengal about seventy 
miles down from Calcutta. The part of 
the river which flows by Calcutta is also 
called the “ Hooghly ” by the English, 
and at the same time known to the Hin¬ 
dus as the “ Bhagirathi.” 

Every Hindu child learns from the lips 
of elders a story about the rise of the 
Ganges. Once upon a time, King Sagar 
was ruling Aryabarta. (the land of the 
Aryans ). 1 He had sixty thousand sons. 
They disturbed the peace of mind enjoyed 
by one of the great rislvis (sages) who had 
divine powers. The rislii was so disturbed 
that by the exercise of his powers he re¬ 
duced to ashes those sixty thousand sons 

1 Ancient name of northern India. 


BIRTH OF A HINDU CHILD 


17 


of King Sagar. Nothing could be done 
to save them from the rishi’s wrath. 
Bhagiratha, a member of the family, dis¬ 
covered later that the king’s sons could be 
brought back to life, if he could only suc¬ 
ceed in persuading the god Siva to un¬ 
loose Ganga (Ganges) from the coils of 
his hair. After many hardships and a 
long journey to the highest point of the 
Mt. Kailash (Himalayas)—the home of 
the god, Bhagiratha was permitted to 
bring Ganga down from the Himalayas. 
The sons of King Sagar came back to life 
when the lifegiving water of the river 
flowed over their ashes. Ganga (or the 
Ganges) became the saviour of the sinners. 
I liked to hear this story of the birth of the 
Ganges. 

I was certainly not thrown into the 
Ganges as food for crocodiles. My three 
elder sisters were all living when I was 
born. I remember very well the days 
when my nephews and nieces were born. 
I can assure the readers that in no case 


18 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

was there ever the faintest idea of throw¬ 
ing these babies into the Ganges. 

When babies are born in a Hindu 
household, their arrival is announced to 
the neighbors by the blowing of conch 
shells. Women and girls take special de¬ 
light in acting as heralds for the family. 
The birth of a child is welcomed in every 
Hindu home in India. The joy of the 
parents, relatives, and friends knows no 
bounds when the baby is a boy. 

Boys are more welcome than girls for 
several reasons. First of all, they help 
preserve the family name and prestige. 
There is a Hindu proverb: “ As long as 
one lives, one can keep alive his father’s 
name.” For in India, if one’s name is 
asked first by a stranger or an acquaint¬ 
ance, one can naturally anticipate the sec¬ 
ond question, and that is the name of the 
father. Such questions about one’s name, 
caste, and father’s name may be annoying 
in the West but they are very common in 
India. In the second place, boys are en- 


BIRTH OF A HINDU CHILD 


19 


titled to offer sacrifices to the spirits of the 
departed ancestors . 1 Finally, they stay 
with parents and support them in their old 
age. Several Hindus whom I know have 
expressed their surprise that in the United 
States some of the older people live in old 
people’s homes while their sons, thus freed 
of caring for their aged parents, enjoy 
their own lives. Such arrangements are 
not possible in Hindu society. 

A boy is preferred, too, because he does 
not get married so early as a girl, who 
leaves for her husband’s home a year after 
their marriage. Moreover, the boys of 
certain communities receive a dowiy when 
they marry, and thereby add to the family 
treasury. The boys are, therefore, looked 
upon by some as assets, or investments, 
and the girls as liabilities. Girls leave 
their parental homes at a comparatively 
early age—between twelve and sixteen 
years. Marriage is obligatory in case of 

1 Such sacrifices are not animal sacrifices, but offer¬ 
ings of Pinda, or rice for the dead. 



20 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


girls in orthodox Hindu society. Some 
of them help in draining off a consider¬ 
able part of the family savings which goes 
to provide the dowry and other expenses 
for the wedding. 

Fortunately, I was born in a family 
which did not follow the rules of the ortho¬ 
dox Hindu society. My parents belonged 
to very well-known aristocratic families in 
one part of India. Several of my great¬ 
grandfathers on my father’s side were pro¬ 
fessors, poets, and physicians, and on my 
mother’s side I had equally well-known 
ancestors, my grandfather being the last 
of the Dewans of the Bank of Bengal—a 
position of trust and responsibility, similar 
to that of the secretary-treasurer of any 
bank in the West. My parents belonged 
to the Vaidya caste. In our part of India 
the Vaidyas are entitled to wear the sacred 
thread (r/ajnapabit) or sacrificial cord as 
the mark or insignia of second birth or in¬ 
itiation. In Bengal the rank of the 
Vaidyas is next to the Brahmins, who also 


BIRTH OF A HINDU CHILD 


21 


wear the sacred thread. It is usually spun 
by Hindu widows on their spinning- 
wheels. The widows sell the thread and 
make some money to meet their expenses. 

One of my mother’s cousins was the 
world-famous leader of India in the last 
century—Keshub Chunder Sen, about 
whose wonderful power of speech it was 
said, “ When Keshub speaks the world 
hears.” After the death of Keshub Chun¬ 
der Sen in 1884 , my father joined the 
progressive religious movement known as 
the Brahmo Somaj which Keshub Chun¬ 
der Sen led while he was living. It will 
be of interest to note that a very well or¬ 
ganized meeting was held in Boston in 
Tremont Temple to express sorrow at the 
death of the distinguished Hindu on the 
banks of the Ganges. 

My father after joining the Brahmo 
Somaj renounced all privileges pertaining 
to the society of High Caste Hindus espe¬ 
cially the dwijas or twice-born. This 
meant not only the giving up of the sacred 


22 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


thread, but non-recognition of any caste 
distinction in matters of eating, marry¬ 
ing, etc. My uncle (Father’s elder 
brother) used to wear the sacred thread. 
It consisted of a bunch of skeins of white 
thread about thirty-six inches long. The 
cord is hung around either the left 

shoulder or the neck. 

Hindu society is based on an original 

fourfold division, according to the four 

main occupations of life: the priest and 

scholar; the warrior or soldier; the farmer 

and merchant; and, last of all, the laborer. 

In the course of time, this division became 

very rigid and gave rise to other divisions 

and subdivisions which were recognized as 

new castes. In the worst davs of Indian 

•/ 

history, intermarriage, interdining, and 
other forms of social intercourse were pro¬ 
hibited by the lawmakers, and Hindu so- 
ciety became divided into separate groups. 
Every profession became a caste, and a 
man born in a certain caste remained 
within it unless made an outcaste by the 


BIRTH OF A HINDU CHILD 23 

decision of his group. Blacksmith, car¬ 
penter, builder, shoemaker, weaver, pot¬ 
ter, fisherman, etc., each belonged to the 
particular profession—the caste. It is to 
be remembered that caste rules were not 
so rigid in the beginning as in the latter 
days. 

The house where I was born was a small 
rented structure built of bricks and mortar 
with cemented floor, plastered (sand and 
lime) walls, and flat tiled roof. The in¬ 
sides of the rooms were painted white. I 
had occasion to visit this house when I was 
older. I love to remember my birthplace 
as well as the house where I spent most 
of my young days. Later, when at 
school, I read Thomas Hood’s poem, “ I 
remember, I remember.” It produced 
such a thrill that I had very little diffi¬ 
culty in memorizing it, with its opening 
lines: 

“ I remember, I remember 
The house where I was born, 

The little window where the sun 
Came peeping in at morn.” 


24 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


At the time of my birth our family was 
somewhat isolated from our orthodox 
Hindu friends and relatives. Conse¬ 
quently when I was a few days old the 
social and religious practices which are 
usually performed at the birth of a child 
were not observed. I remember my 
mother telling me one of the practices so 
common on the sixth day after a baby is 
born in a Hindu house. An inkpot and 
a pen are left at night on the threshold 
of the room where the baby and its 
mother sleep. It is believed that the 
Vidhata Purusha (or the Great Dispenser 
of Events) visits the child at dead of 
night and writes the child’s future on its 
forehead. 

There are special celebrations on the 
sixth and the eighth days. Sasthi, the god¬ 
dess of children, is worshipped on the sixth 
day, which is followed by another celebra¬ 
tion on the eighth day. The goddess is 
represented as a yellow-complexioned 
woman with a child in her arms, riding on 


BIRTH OF A HINDU CHILD 


25 


a cat. No Hindu woman, therefore, dares 
to injure a cat. Well-to-do families send 
presents to their friends and relations at 
the end of the week. The gifts are dis¬ 
tributed in small baskets which contain 
puffed rice, sweetened flattened rice, dried 
puffed peas, sweets, etc., and a few pieces 
of silver or copper coins ( paisha —one- 
half cent). I remember in my childhood 
whenever such presents came to our home, 
I waited anxiously for the few coppers, 
which my mother always divided equally 
among her children. My mother never 
showed any partiality to me—the young¬ 
est child in the family. The copper coins 
( paishas ) as a rule, looked very bright, 
for they were all fresh from the mint. 
Sometimes children from the neighbor¬ 
hood, as well as children of friends and 
relatives, are invited to see the newly-born 
babe. They come, sing and dance round 
the room, and are treated to different 
kinds of sweets and fruits. At the end of 
the program they return home perfectly 




26 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


happy and contented, especially when 
they receive a few copper coins or a small 
silver coin of the value of four cents. 

Every new-born baby in a Hindu fam¬ 
ily has a wonderful earning capacity. Of 
course, there is no show window in the 
home. The people in India have never 
heard of the baby shows so characteristic 
in certain cities of the United States. 
Still a baby is exhibited to visitors and it 
earns some money in the course of a few 
weeks. Whenever a relative or friend 
wants to see the child for the first time, 
he presents something to the baby in coin 
or in kind. It varies from a silver rupee 
(about thirty-two cents) to a gold piece 
equivalent to an English sovereign (about 
five dollars). This collection of presents 
is usually kept in charge of the mother 
who buys some necessaiy articles of dress, 
ornaments, or toys for the child when it 
grows a few months older. The money is 
even deposited in postal savings banks by 
some parents. Banks are few and far be- 


BIRTH OF A HINDU CHILD 


27 


tween in India, but every post-office has 
its savings department. 

The vast majority of the people, being 
farmers of quite limited means, are very 
poor. Some do not even have two square 
meals a day. The only meal that they 
can afford consists of a few handfuls of 
cooked rice, one or two vegetables, and a 
little salt. Such people cannot exchange 
presents or entertain friends even on such 
happy occasions as the birth of a baby or 
a marriage. Their lot is really very hard. 
I am familiar with their conditions from 
my personal observations of the poor peo¬ 
ple among whom I worked for several 
years before I came to the United States. 

The most important ceremony in the 
life of a child is the annaprashan (rice-tak¬ 
ing) or namakaran (name-giving) when 
rice is formally set before the child as food. 
In some families the child is not allowed 
to swallow a single grain of rice until this 
rite is administered by the priests. Other 
families simply make it a formal affair. 


28 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


Calcutta is a great pilgrim center. The 
temple of the goddess Kali—the mother 
goddess representing force and energy— 
is located in the southern part of the city. 
To this temple parents take their children 
to perform the necessary puja (devotional 
worship) before they administer the rice. 
I know I did not have to go through such 
a ceremony at any temple. My mother 
told me that, instead of that, we had a 
service of worship in our house, conducted 
by one of the well-known ministers of the 
Brahmo Somaj, Reverend Bhai Upad- 
haya Gourgovinda Roy. A large num¬ 
ber of friends were invited on the occasion. 
At the end of the service (which consisted 
of singing of hymns, reading of scriptures 
of different religions, prayers, etc.), the 
minister announced my name. 

As a rule, two names are given to a 
child. One is the formal name and the 
other is the informal. Sometimes one of 
the names is determined by the star under 
which one is born. I have only one name, 


BIRTH OF A HINDU CHILD 


29 


Satyananda. It means truth and joy. 
(Satya and Ananda), or, if I want to 
make any meaning out of it, it may even 
mean one who rejoices in truth or one 
who is the joy of the pure. The first part 
of my name is similar to the Christian 
name of the West. My last name, Roy, 
which is also spelled as Rai, Ray, and 
Raya, is not a family name. Our family 
name is Das Gupta, which indicates our 
caste. The Mohammedans, while they 
ruled in India, recognized no caste. They 
conferred titles of honor on those who 
served the government. Probably some 
one of my ancestors received the title Roy 
frdm one such ruler. In the course of 
time the title became hereditary. 

The Hindus usually name their chil¬ 
dren after the names of their gods and 
goddesses. There is a popular saying that 
there are three hundred and thirty millions 
of gods and goddesses . 1 In recent times 

J The total population of India (including Burma) is 
313,470,014. 


30 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


parents have been giving different kinds 
of names to their children. They are more 
poetic and abstract. But in the days of 
our mothers and grandmothers such names 
could be found only here and there. For 
example: my mother and her younger sis¬ 
ter have two different names of the same 
goddess. My mother’s name was Anna¬ 
purna (one who fills with food) ; this god¬ 
dess is represented in Hindu mythology as 
a fair woman who stands on a lotus with 
a rice-bowl in one hand, a spoon in the 
other. She is the guardian deity of many 
Hindu homes. My aunt’s name is Giri- 
bala or the daughter of the mountains. 
Both Annapurna and Giribala are names 
of the goddess Sati, Gouri, or Parbati, the 
wife of Shiva. 

Sometimes converts to Christianity 
adopt a Christian name such as John Bose, 
or Alfred Nundy, but one very seldom 
will notice any convert from the higher 
castes who has changed his name entirely, 
while among converts from the lower 


BIRTH OF A HINDU CHILD 31 

castes and aboriginal tribes of India there 
are some who have changed their names 
completely. Their names may not sound 
at all unfamiliar to Western ears,—Sam¬ 
son, Simon, Peter, Jacob, Edward, Ethel, 
Gertrude, etc. In the case of both boys 
and girls, sometimes the designation serv¬ 
ant or maid of god or goddess is added to 
a name,—Hari, meaning God; Haridas, 
meaning servant of the god Hari; Hari- 
dasi, meaning maid of the god Hari. The 
idea has been carried forward to the In¬ 
dian Christian community. I have a 
friend whose name is Jesudas or Servant 
of Jesus. 

One may naturally ask why the Hindu 
children are named after the gods and 
goddesses. The reason is found in the 
following story of Ajamil and how he 
went to Baikuntha (the heaven of the god 
Vishnu). Ajamil was a great sinner who 
lived in ancient times. His wickedness 
even made the earth feel the burden 
heavier. He forgot all about gods and 



32 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


worship, so deeply absorbed in his various 
evil deeds was he. But he had named his 
son Vishnu after the name of the great 
god of protection. When the earth grew 
weary of carrying the burden of such a 
wicked one, Yama, the Lord of Death, de¬ 
cided to visit him. Ajamil was lying on 
his death-bed without feeling the least bit 
of shame for his evil deeds. He did not 
repent. The Lord of Death with his at¬ 
tendants came to take him away. Ajamil 
was so frightened when he saw him that he 
made a last effort to call his son by name 
—Vishnu. The sound penetrated through 
the walls of heaven and the great god 
Vishnu felt restless. He came down to 
claim the worst sinner who had called him 
in his last moments. Death and his ter¬ 
rible attendants had to depart at the ap¬ 
proach of the Lord of Life. It was by a 
mere chance that Ajamil was saved. 
Repetition of the names of gods and god¬ 
desses (one hundred eight, one thousand 
or more times) during the day is one of 


BIRTH OF A HINDU CHILD 


33 


the duties of the Hindus. Here is a way 
for a Hindu to repeat the name of a god 
or goddess as many times as he calls his 
sons or daughters, who bear the names of 
gods and goddesses. Beads of rosary are 
used by Hindu householders (especially in 
the evening) as help in counting the names 
of gods. Pious people may be seen carry¬ 
ing the rosary in a small bag made of cot¬ 
ton or plush. 


CHAPTER II 


CHILDHOOD DAYS 

In the course of the first few weeks 
after my birth there was a fire in the room 
late at night. My mother, myself, and a 
nurse were all sleeping. It was during the 
winter months in Calcutta when evenings 
were rather cold and mornings were very 
foggy. The nurse built a fire in an open 
fireplace in the form of an earthen bowl. 
Her clothes caught fire from the flames 
in the bowl. Had it not been for the cour¬ 
age of my father, who was awakened from 
his sleep by the shrieking of the nurse, we 
three would have perished in the flames, 
or been badly burnt and disfigured. My 
father, with the cool courage which char¬ 
acterized him always, managed to put out 
the fire. The majority of the so-called 
nurses of fifteen or twenty years ago were 


CHILDHOOD DAYS 


35 


very ignorant. They are so even now; 
but it is a hopeful sign of the times that 
their quality is improving. Not only are 
the nurses better trained, but every year 
India is graduating a number of women 
doctors from the different medical schools 
and colleges. 

My father was a very good-looking man 
with a fair complexion. My mother told 
me that when I was born I had a very 
good complexion. One of my father’s 
friends remarked in those days that I 
looked more like a European than a 
Hindu. We have in India people of all 
shades of complexion, corresponding to 
the blonds and brunettes of the West, as 
well as the yellow and the brown, char¬ 
acteristic of the East. Many people in 
the West, and especially in the United 
States, have the wrong impression that all 
Hindus are either brown, yellow, or black. 
They are not. 

Many were the stories of his school days 
which my father told me in the early days 


36 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


of my childhood. He was a very well- 
built man and attended regularly a gym¬ 
nasium for physical culture. Though 
himself a product of the gymnasium, I re¬ 
member very well he did not like my idea 
of joining it. When I was a little older 
I listened with rapt attention to every¬ 
thing my father said about the schooling 
he had received through the different 
grades. The lowest school was the 
pathshala (or the house of reading les¬ 
sons). The beginnings of a child’s edu¬ 
cation in his days were made with the writ¬ 
ing on the cemented floor, first with a kind 
of white paint and then with a heavy pencil 
chalk, which looked more like a stick of 
stone. The next step was writing on 
plantain or banana leaves with reed pen 
and ink. Steel pens were strictly pro¬ 
hibited for beginners. When I was five 
and a half years old, I began writing on 
the floor with the chalk stick. My next 
step was writing on the slate. But in my 
father’s day, when a scholar became 


CHILDHOOD DAYS 


37 


proficient in the art of writing on banana 
leaves, he was promoted to the next higher 
class, where he could write on dried palm 
leaves. Many ancient manuscripts of 
India were written on such leaves. Be¬ 
tween the stage of writing on palm leaves 
and paper there was the slate. I remem¬ 
ber I made little use of the slate in my 
/ 

school days. When I began to write on 
paper, I used first the reed pen and after¬ 
ward the quill. The steel pen came last 
of all. 

My father always tried to impress on 
me the value of knowledge. One of his 
classmates, he told me, committed to mem¬ 
ory the whole of Dr. Johnson’s English 
Dictionary. Another used to study late at 
night in the streets of Calcutta under the 
street lamps,—and in those days we had 
kerosene lamps for lighting the streets. 
One of these boys became in later life a 
doctor, and the other, a lawyer. 

My father, in his school days, bought a 
copy of the Mahabharata—the great In- 


38 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


dian national Saga. It was a translation 
into Bengali (my language) from the 
classical Sanskrit. My father told me that 
he had saved the little money which he 
used to receive from my grandfather for 
school lunches. He bought the book and 
had the parts bound out of his savings. 
The book, running through eighteen 
volumes, provided me enough reading 
during my school days. My second sister 
was a voracious reader and a good story¬ 
teller. She used to tell us many stories 
from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata 
—the two outstanding educational agen¬ 
cies of India. 

The Mahabharata describes the story of 
two princely houses, the Kurus and the 
Pandavas who descended from common 
ancestors. The blind king, Dhritrashtra, 
had one hundred sons and his brother 
Pandu had only five. On account of the 
blindness of Dhritrashtra, Pandu ruled 
the kingdom of Delhi. His eldest son 
Yudhishtir succeeded him; but the sons of 




S' -■ 

1 

■S: >1 


A Scene from the Mahabharata. 


Shri Krishna in the Kaurava assembly on a peacemaking errand 

from the Pandavas. 





CHILDHOOD DAYS 


39 


Dhritrashtra were so jealous that they 
sought every means to kill the five brothers 
who were well known for their honesty, 
bravery, and wisdom. They finally suc¬ 
ceeded in banishing the five brothers and 
their wife Draupadi from their kingdom 
on account of their defeating them at a 
game of dice. The Pandavas with Yud- 
hishtir as their leader always stood for 
truth, goodness, and justice; while the 
party of the Kurus, with Duryodhan at 
their head, stood for jealousy, hatred, and 
unrighteousness. At the end of their 
period of banishment the five brothers 
claimed their kingdom. The Kurus were 
reluctant to give up their claims. At 
the refusal of Duryodhan and his party 
( i . e. y the Kurus) to restore even that 
“ part of the land which can be marked 
by a needle’s point,” war was declared 
in which Sri Krishna, the incarnation 
of God, sided with the Pandavas, and, 
in the chariot of the third brother Arjuna, 
took part in the battle. 


40 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


The Mahabharata ends with the final 
overthrow of the Kurus, the party of un¬ 
righteousness. But the victory was very 
dearly bought. They could not enjoy the 
fruits of victory, because of the unholy 
methods of warfare they had to adopt to 
attain even a righteous end. They had to 
pay the price. Yudhishtir was trans¬ 
ported into Heaven like Elijah of the Old 
Testament, and his brothers and wife died 
on their way to Heaven. 

Such is, in brief, the story of the great 
Indian epic which, more than anything 
else, unites the people of India who be¬ 
long to the Hindu society. It is a mine of 
anecdotes and stories of heroes and their 
relations with men and gods. The stories 
appealed to my boyish mind because of 
the daring and the goodness of some of 
their chief characters. I remember that I 
had very favored heroes—Arjuna and 
Bhisma—and sometimes, with friends, I 
used to create little plays in which we took 
the parts of their characters. To under- 


CHILDHOOD DAYS 


41 


stand India and the Hindus, the Maha- 
bharata must be studied, for we have a 
proverb: “What is not found in Maha- 
bharata cannot be found in India.” A re¬ 
cent writer on Indian subjects has re¬ 
marked: 

“No great man could be made in India 
without its influence upon his childhood. 
And the hero-making poem is one 
throughout every province of the land.” 1 

When I was about two years old my 
parents removed to our ancestral home in 
one of the oldest districts of Calcutta. Its 
early name was Sutanuti and it formed 
the nucleus of the early settlement under 
the English East India Company. Mod¬ 
ern Calcutta is an outgrowth of seven vil¬ 
lages about one hundred and seventy years 
old. Besides the home in Calcutta we had 
another home in the country districts not 
very far from the city. The name of that 
place was Kanchanpalli or Kanchrapara, 

1 Noble, Margaret E. (Sister Nivedita)—“ The Web of 

Indian Eife.” 


42 WHEN 1 WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


meaning “ Golden Village.” I never re¬ 
turned to that place. The once prosper¬ 
ous village is now almost deserted; and, as 
I understand from the description given 
by some of my relations, most of its houses 
are in ruins. It is full of jungles and ani¬ 
mals like jackals—and, occasionally, tigers 
prowl around. 

The deserted condition of the villages 
is really appalling in our part of the land, 
notwithstanding our rich landholder class. 
One of the causes of the decay of the vil¬ 
lages is the rapid progress of malaria in 
the country districts. Very little attempt 
has been made to combat malaria until 
recently. Poor people can hardly afford 
the luxury of having the mosquito netting 
or curtain, which encloses a bed. Such 
curtains, no doubt, keep off the mosqui¬ 
toes ; yet I remember at least one night in 
Howrah (on the opposite side of the river 
Ganges, near Calcutta) when, despite the 
curtain, I was kept awake all night by the 
terrible noise made by their swarm, at- 


CHILDHOOD DAYS 


43 


tempting to force their way through the 
netting. The majority of the men do 
not wear any clothing to cover the upper 
part of their bodies. The mosquito bites 
are very annoying. 

The traveler who goes to Calcutta and 
wanders through the European district 
and the residential section for wealthy In¬ 
dians, is not likely to meet the decay and 
the disintegration which characterize our 
villages. The business districts are 
crowded with motor-cars, trucks, taxi¬ 
cabs, and electric tram-cars. The hurry 
and bustle of modern city life has in¬ 
creased a hundredfold since my childhood. 
The days of slow street-cars drawn by 
horses and palanquins ( palkis) borne on 
the shoulders of four men have passed 
away. The tremendous amount of busi¬ 
ness carried on every day in the modern 
Indian city will give an inadequate idea of 
Indian life. The American tourists sel¬ 
dom visit the villages which even now sup¬ 
ply most of our resources. No Indian, 


44 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

therefore, can overlook the villages, how¬ 
ever poor they may be. For nine-tenths 
of the population of India live in small, 
country settlements. There are about 
seven hundred thousand villages. The 
number of cities with a population of 
about one hundred thousand will not ex¬ 
ceed thirty. Societies are rapidly spring¬ 
ing up in India for the improvement of the 
villages. 

Though I was born and brought up in 
a city, the second largest city in the British 
Empire, next to London, I never lost con¬ 
tact with village life. I heard stories of 
that life from my father, mother, and 
grandmother. I went to my mother’s vil¬ 
lage home several times when I was a boy. 
Those were my first experiences of real 
village life. I liked the life with all its 
disadvantages. They used to drink water 
from the wells or ponds and filtered at 
home. My grandfather had a palatial 
building in the village of Gariffa, not far 
from the banks of the Ganges. He had 



The Statue of Buddha at Buddhagaya. 

The place where Buddha is said to have attained Nirvana. 







CHILDHOOD DAYS 


45 


extensive gardens with different kinds of 
fruit and flower trees. There were three 
large tanks near the house which belonged 
to my grandfather. The place looked 
very beautiful in summer with all the 
fruit-trees heavily laden with, luscious 
fruits. Mangoes, peaches, lichis, jams 
(jambolin), palms, guava, lemons, ba¬ 
nanas, jackfruits, pineapples,—just to 
mention a few from the several gardens— 
added to our daily bill of fare. 

My grandfather had six sons and two 
daughters. At certain intervals during 
the year all the sons with their families and 
the daughters would come and live in the 
same house with their parents. Besides 
there would be a few near relatives who 
did not have any homes. According to 
the customs of the Hindu Joint Family, 
there are homes which accommodate be¬ 
tween forty and one hundred members. 
A college friend of mine in India once 
told me that in his home more than one 
hundred people (including servants) had 


46 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

their meals twice daily. Certain homes in 
the country districts are like villages by 
themselves. 

It is distressing for us to note the ruined 
state of our grandfathers’ houses. Both 
my grandfathers’ (paternal and mater¬ 
nal) native villages have grown since my 
childhood. Two important railway cen¬ 
ters have opened their new workshops, and 
jute mills have been successfully plying 
their trade. But these inroads of modern 
machinery have not improved the health 
and sanitation of the people in the neigh¬ 
boring districts in a satisfactory way. In 
India modern machinery and improved 
health do not go hand in hand, as in many 
places in the United States. 

Our house in Calcutta was a small two- 
storied building. Adjoining it there was 
another brick-built, one-storied house in 
which my uncle lived. He was my fa¬ 
ther’s eldest brother and a medical practi¬ 
tioner (homeopathic) in those days. In 
my young days I watched him examine 


CHILDHOOD DAYS 


47 


patients and prescribe medicine* There 
was a room on the roof of his house which 
served as the family sanctuary from my 
grandfather’s days. The sanctuary is the 
most holy place in a Hindu home. Every¬ 
thing is kept scrupulously clean there. My 
grandfather, a very devout man, and his 
six brothers set apart this room for the 
worship of the family god—Raghunath, 
another name for Vishnu, the second mem¬ 
ber of the Hindu Trinity. On a small 
wooden platform at the center of the room 
there was a brass throne, a beautiful speci¬ 
men of Indian brasswork. The symbol of 
the god in the shape of a small, but 
slightly flattened and irregularly shaped, 
black stone, formed the object of worship . 1 
Though my father, because of his mem¬ 
bership in the Brahmo Somaj—the pro¬ 
gressive religious movement of India 
which stood for harmony, unity, and uni- 

1 Symbols of gods and goddesses are usually made of 
stone or metals like brass, silver, and gold. Images are 
also made of the same substances, as well as clay and 

wood. 



48 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


versality—did not approve of the worship 
of gods and goddesses, I had, in my boy¬ 
hood, many chances of witnessing the or¬ 
thodox forms of Hindu worship. 

Our house had four rooms on the second 
story. Each room had two or three large 
windows, and was well lighted and venti¬ 
lated. The shape of the house was rec¬ 
tangular. There was an open courtyard 
at the center. Most of the houses in our 
part of India have the open courtyards, 
though no space may intervene between 
two houses, and there may be no front 
yard. Between the courtyard and the 
rooms there was a veranda which enclosed 
the open space at the center of the house. 
Wood is used for the floors and inner 
walls of wooden and other houses. Their 
number is comparatively small in Cal¬ 
cutta, except in the poorer people’s dis¬ 
tricts. After my arrival in the United 
States I sent a picture post-card to a 
friend. It had the picture of a building. 
On receipt of the card my friend wrote to 


CHILDHOOD DAYS 


49 


me that he did not know how the people in 
the States could live in such a box-like 
structure called a house, without having 
any open space in the middle in which to 
breathe. 

My grandmother (Father’s mother) 
used to live in one of the rooms on the 
second story. She was almost crippled 
on account of a chronic rheumatism from 
which she suffered for several years. She 
told me many stories about dacoits (armed 
burglars) who used to infest the country 
districts during her young days. One 
night the dacoits came to her ancestral 
village home and sought to break open the 
doors of the house. From fifty to seventy 
years ago, the country houses of the rich 
and well-to-do were provided with several 
sets of doors made of extra heavy wood. 
The stairs were built in such a way that 
before one could reach the last step lead¬ 
ing to one floor he had to pass through 
several doors. Such doors were the marks 
of robber-proof houses. Every Hindu 



50 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

house had its inner apartments where 
men, women, and children slept and de¬ 
posited their valuables in secret vaults on 
the floor or in the walls of the bedrooms. 
My grandfather’s house at Gariffa (or 
Gauriva) had all those advantages. The 
“ Chor Kuthir,” or the hiding-place from 
the gaze of the thieves, was a small shelf 
(or closet) in an obscure corner of the 
room which the thieves were likely to leave 
unnoticed in their hurry. I remember, 
when I played the game of hide-and-seek, 
we would aim for that “ Chor Kuthir.” 

Some of the dacoits were like the black- 
hands of America. They would inform 
their victims by mail as to the date and 
time of their visits. One of the famous 
dacoits, whose thrilling exploits resembled 
those of Robin Hood, was Viswanath or 
Vishu dacoit. His object was to rob 
Peter to pay Paul. There was another 
whose name was Raghu or Rogho dacoit. 
Some of the dacoits used big wooden legs 
called raii'pd. They were experts in fly- 



CHILDHOOD DAYS 


51 


ing through the country with the help of 
those big sticks used as extended legs, or 
stilts. 

On the particular night to which my 
grandmother referred, the dacoits came 
with lighted torches. They were all 
masked men who preferred to remain un¬ 
known. Some of them had their bodies 
painted, too. They carried spears, swords, 
shields, and big sticks. The terrible noise 
they made when they arrived before the 
house awakened the sleepers. The men in 
the house understood that noise immedi¬ 
ately, and rushed for their spears. They 
stood at their posts behind several doors 
which had holes through which they could 
drive their spears in defence. 

My grandmother was a clever woman. 
Her eldest child had a number of gold 
ornaments on his body. She took out 
every one of them, wrapped them up in a 
piece of cloth, and threw the bundle out of 
the window into the back yard. It fell in 
a dark spot which was full of trees and 



52 WHEN 1 WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


shrubs. She knew very well that the 
dacoits would lay hands on everything 
that was valuable. Some of them, no 
doubt, treated women and children with 
consideration; but there were others who 
did not. In vain did the dacoits try to 
force their way into the house by breaking 
open the doors, but their attempts were 
repulsed by the skillful use of spears by 
the men on the inside who were defending 
the house. 

The attack and the defence continued 
for several hours, until the cock crew and 
the faint glimmerings of dawn indicated 
the approach of the morning. Baffled in 
his attempt, the robber chief ordered re¬ 
treat; for it was a custom with the dacoits 
to give up the attempt after the first cock 
had crowed. But the chief was sore at 
heart on account of the unexpected 
failure. He went back repeating the cry: 

“ When I shall come back next time I 

\ 

shall play football with the head of the 
owner of this house.” 


CHILDHOOD DAYS 


53 


The owner of the house was my great¬ 
grandfather. 

Such stories of dacoits, thieves, and 
ghosts used to frighten me so much that I 
would sit shivering at the feet of the story¬ 
teller. The stories of ghosts with their 
many varieties would scare even grown-up 
people. My father said he did not believe 
in ghosts or spirits. That gave me some 
courage, but such stories as those of the 
petni (woman ghosts ), sankchunni (white- 
complexioned woman ghosts), skanda- 
kdta (headless ghosts), Brahmadoitya 
(Brahmin Ghost), and Mdmdo (Moham¬ 
medan Ghost), used to frighten me in 
dark places until my thirteenth year . 1 
Besides these stories, my second sister had 
access to a wonderful collection from our 
epics, the Rajasthan (or the Deeds of the 
Heroes of Rajputana), the Puranas 

1 In my uncle’s house there was a wood-apple (Acyle 
Marmelos) tree. Some of my friends frightened me by 
telling stories about Brahmin’s ghost who lived in that 
tree. 


54 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


(popular scriptures) and the lives of the 
great teachers of all religions. 

Grandparents are very much concerned 
about the welfare of their grandchildren. 
My grandmother was no exception to this 
rule. When I was very young, my posi¬ 
tion in the family was unique. My father 
had three brothers, but they had no sons. 
I was the only grandson my grandmother 
ever had. There is a story about my 
grandmother. Bless her heart! 

Mango is considered to be the best fruit 
of our country. I do not know how to 
describe its taste. So far as my knowl¬ 
edge goes, it does not grow in any other 
part of the world. Only in recent years 
attempts have been made to grow man¬ 
goes in Florida and California. Mango 
has more than one hundred different varie¬ 
ties. During the mango season, i. e., dur¬ 
ing the summer months, children do not 
like to eat anything else but mangoes, 
morning, noon, and night. Good mangoes 
(like Bombai, Langra, Fajli, Himsagar, 


CHILDHOOD DAYS 


55 


Kishenbhog) have a very sweet taste simi¬ 
lar to the taste which one may enjoy from 
a combination of apple, peach, and pine¬ 
apple. The shape of the seed is flat and 
oval, and the color of the meat varies be¬ 
tween various shades of yellow and red. 
The skin is either green or yellow with red 
spots. The best mangoes have a mealy 
taste, while the others, though very juicy, 
are fibrous. When green they are eaten 
with a pinch of salt added to each bite. 
In late spring and early summer, boys will 
be seen sitting on the branches of mango- 
trees with jack-knives taken out of their 
tucked-in waist pockets (when one does 
not wear anything else but a piece of cloth 
called dhuti or dhoti a pocket is impro¬ 
vised near the waist by tucking in the 
cloth), cutting slices of mangoes and eat¬ 
ing these with great relish. 

I was, as a boy, never very fond of this 
fruit. My grandmother became a little 
worried. She advised my mother that she 
should at least persuade me to make a 


56 WHEN l WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


gift of a mango to a Brahmin, a member 
of the highest caste. In her opinion, my 
lack of taste for mango surely could not be 
attributed to any other cause but one, that 
in my former birth I must have been a 
very stingy man, who loathed to present 
even a mango to a deserving Brahmin. 
That sin was haunting me in my subse¬ 
quent (present) birth and I could counter¬ 
act the effects of the sin (my lack of my 
taste for mango) only by performing the 
duty which I had neglected in my previous 
birth. The popular Hindu theory of 
births and rebirths seeks to explain many 
events in human life in this fashion. 
Adrista (that which is not seen, or des¬ 
tiny) or Kapal (forehead)—these are 
very common expressions amongst Hindu 
families. Many a time I heard these 
words from my grandmother, aunt, and 
others. 

When I recall my grandmother, I am 
reminded of a well-known Bengali prov¬ 
erb which mothers and grandmothers 



CHILDHOOD DAYS 


57 


often quoted: “ Grandson’s grandson in 
one’s lifetime helps light a candle in 
heaven.” I know very few grandparents 
have the privilege of meeting their grand¬ 
child’s grandchild. For the average life 
of a man in India is only twenty-three 
years. 


CHAPTER III 










SCHOOL DAYS 

My father was educated in the famous 
missionary school and college in Calcutta 
established by the prince of Christian mis¬ 
sionaries in India, Dr. Alexander Duff. 
The college bore his name during my fa¬ 
ther’s days. At present the Scottish 
Churches’ College includes the old insti¬ 
tution founded by Dr. Duff. My father 
never became a convert to Christianity 
but was greatly influenced by the teach¬ 
ings of Jesus and the work of the progres¬ 
sive social and religious leaders of India 
like Debendranath Tagore (father of the 
poet Rabindranath Tagore) and Keshub 
Chunder Sen. My three sisters, who were 
all senior to me in age and schooling, at¬ 
tended the girls’ schools conducted by the 
Brahmo Somaj and the Church of Scot¬ 
land. 


58 


SCHOOL DAYS 


59 


Once my parents conceived the idea of 
inviting one of the visiting women teachers 
of the Scotch Mission into our home to 
teach us. So Mrs. B.-, one of the ear¬ 

liest women graduates of the University of 
Calcutta, became our teacher. At least in 
my own case she was the first teacher that 
I had. In Bengal, when the parents de¬ 
cide that their boys shall begin the life of 
a scholar they consult the Hindu almanac. 
It has a list of dates on which Hindus 
should begin. In my case, I remember 
very well that no such reference was made. 
My father and sisters had taught me the 
alphabets and how to write them on the 
floor and the slate. Unlike my father’s 
schooling as regards writing, I skipped 
some of the steps. When I began writing 
on paper with pen and ink I felt as happy 
as a king. 

I learned to count by means of copper 
coins and tamarind seeds which I kept in 
a cloth bag. When I was six and one- 
half years of age my mother insisted on 



60 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


my admission into a school. At first my 
father was not very eager to send me to 
school, but yielded later to my mother’s 
request. He took me to the same school 
in which he had been taught. The most 
elementary and cheapest schools in our 
part of India are known as patlishalds. I 
never had the good, or the bad, fortune of 
receiving an education in a pathshald, 
though there was one almost opposite our 
home. In such schools lessons imparted 
in reading, writing, and arithmetic are 
very elementary in character. Learning 
by rote is very strictly enforced. The 
pandit (scholarly teacher; such name is a 
misnomer in this case) or Guru Mohasliaya 
(sir teacher) rules the school with his cane. 
There cannot be any case of “ sparing the 
rod and spoiling the child ” in most path - 
skalds. 

The school to which I was sent hap¬ 
pened to be a government school (as op¬ 
posed to the numerous private schools) 
and was of a better grade. The building 


SCHOOL DAYS 


61 


was unusually large, having been built by 
one of the millionaires of Calcutta as his 
residence. It was not suited for school 
purposes. My school hours were between 
ten-thirty in the morning and four in the 
afternoon. The pathshalas , on the other 
hand, had morning and afternoon sessions. 
Many parents sent their children there to 
keep them out of mischief. 

During my first few weeks, school life 
did not prove very interesting. The ma¬ 
jority of the teachers were very old men. 
Most of my classmates, too, were older in 
age and in knowledge of the world outside 
of the home. So they treated me as a 
child. I had great difficulty in making 
friends. I was interested in my studies 
and made rapid progress in every subject 
except arithmetic. I shall never forget 
the face of the teacher who first taught me 
arithmetic. From the very beginning he 
began to box my ears, slap my face, and 
strike my back, if I made the slightest mis¬ 
take in doing sums. That treatment by 


62 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

Romanath Babu (as we called him) cre¬ 
ated in me a spirit of revolt—a repug¬ 
nance for a subject which could not be 
taught without beating. I cherished the 
idea that if I ever came in charge of a 
school I would at least abolish the teaching 
of arithmetic (except the first four rules). 
In our pathshalds and lower grades of 
elementary schools, scholars were required 
to chant or recite the multiplication table 
in a singsong voice; usually that part of 
the school routine came during the last pe¬ 
riod. Sometimes there were sardar poros, 
or class leaders, who began reciting. The 
rest of the class would follow the leader 
every time he stopped. Many a time the 
teacher would fall asleep listening to the 
wonderful music produced by his scholars. 

There are schools for bo vs as well as for 
girls in India. But they are neither free 
nor compulsory (except in some of the 
Indian Princes’ territories). The pdth- 
shdlds charge a very small monthly tuition 
for attendance, varying from eight to 


SCHOOL DAYS 


63 


thirty-two cents (two annas to one 
rupee ). The vast majority of the Indian 
children do not have a chance to go inside 
a school. Their parents cannot afford to 
pay the tuition fee. Some of them cannot 
spare their children. In case they do, they 
deprive themselves of a little help which 
they receive from their children, while they 
are engaged in farming. In cities like 
Calcutta boys are apprenticed to work¬ 
men who teach them certain trades, 
i. e., bricklaying, shoemaking, carpentry, 
street-cleaning, etc. Whatever they earn 
is added to the family treasury. 

In the elementary schools boys and girls 
sometimes study in the same classes. But 
in the higher grades, above what we call 
the lower primary (corresponding to the 
American kindergarten) they go to dif¬ 
ferent schools. There is no such system as 
co-education in the upper primary, middle, 
and high schools of India. In the girls’ 
schools, the majority of the teachers are 
women and their number is increasing. 


64 WHEN 1 WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


Boys in the higher grades are never taught 
by women, as in the United States. Be¬ 
sides the attempts made by the govern¬ 
ment to open schools, private agencies and 
societies have been busy all along in start¬ 
ing new schools and offering opportunities 
for education to those to whom it is de¬ 
nied because of poverty. 

Besides these schools there are tols and 
mukhtabs, schools for imparting classical 
Sanskrit and Arabic and Persian lan¬ 
guages and literature. These schools do 
not teach any English. My language, 
Bengali, is derived from Sanskrit. Our 
writing, like that of most of the European 
languages, reads from left to right, while 
Arabic and Persian, following the Semitic 
rule, read from right to left. Northern 
India had once great schools for classical 
learning. Scholars from different parts of 
Asia attended these schools and universi¬ 
ties, some of which even accommodated 
several thousand students in their dormi¬ 
tories. Sanskrit is used by the priests and 


SCHOOL DAYS 65 

Brahmin scholars. It is known as “ the 
language of the gods.” 

Between one-thirty and two in the after¬ 
noon, we enjoyed a short period of recess. 
I recall that we boys waited anxiously for 
the ringing of the one-thirty and four- 
o’clock bells. The afternoon recess period 
was called “ tiffin,” an English word cor¬ 
responding to “ luncheon.” During my 
first four years of school, my mother made 
arrangements for sending my lunch at the 
“ tiffin ” period. We had a servant who 
not only attended me on my way to and 
from school, but brought my food as well. 
Servants are cheap in India. But they 
are becoming scarcer every day, which I 
consider a hopeful sign. Too many serv¬ 
ants have the tendency to make the mas¬ 
ters idle and domineering. 

The students of Indian pathslidlas 
(elementary schools) carry their own 
seats along with their books and slates. 
The seats are rolled mats, three feet 
square. In our Calcutta school we had 


66 WHEN 1 WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

benches without any backs; the classes 
were supplied with long tables or sloping 
desks; a desk and a chair for the teacher 
and a blackboard on a stand,—these were 
the only furniture. We had several play¬ 
grounds, one fitted with apparatus for 
physical exercise, which consisted of 
parallel bars, horizontal bar, swings, rings, 
ladder, dumb-bells, bar-bells, Indian clubs, 
trapeze, etc. Most of my schoolmates 
who loved to play came at least half an 
hour before the commencement of the first 
school period. That, as well as the 
“ tiffin ” period, was devoted to various 
kinds of games. Even during the hot 
summer months of April, May, and June, 
there was no cessation of these games. In 
consequence we always suffered from a 
terrible thirst. Whenever a student felt 
thirsty he could leave the class with the 
permission of the teacher. The usual 
form of request was made with folded 
palms, which signified an attitude of 
prayer. Some of the students, I remem- 


SCHOOL DAYS 


67 


her, used to slip out of the class on pretext 
of getting a drink of water when they 
really wanted to evade reciting their les¬ 
sons, as they had come to school unpre¬ 
pared. Indian schools do not have any 
drinking-fountains like those in America. 
The teachers do not help the pupils in the 
preparation of daily lessons, these being 
supposed to he done at home. Classes are 
not placed in charge of single teachers as 
in the United States. The Indian teach¬ 
ers teach subjects, not their pupils. That 
is a great defect. The pupils have to 
supply their own books and writing ma¬ 
terials, the cost of which is an additional 
burden for poor people. 

The teachers in Indian schools work at 
least four out of five periods every day. 
They are very poorly paid. In the cities, 
to add to their scanty source of income, 
they tutor students in private homes. In 
the country some of them take charge of 
the village post-offices. Some of my 
teachers used to tease me every now and 


68 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


then to ask my father to engage their 
services. In case they were engaged as 
private tutors, they promised me that they 
would make me proficient in every sub¬ 
ject, including arithmetic. I did not 
blame their solicitude, because some of 
them did not earn more than seven or ten 
dollars a month. However, my father 
never entertained their proposals, as he 
was a believer in self-help in matters of 
acquiring an education which would really 
educate. 

Just before the summer vacation the 
school would hold its sessions (for at least 
two weeks) from six o’clock in the morn¬ 
ing until ten. I remember when I re¬ 
turned home from the “ morning school,” 
as we called it, it used to be so warm that 
I could not eat my breakfast until an hour 
later. Our schools closed on Saturdays at 
one-thirty or two o’clock in the afternoon. 
We had three long vacations during the 
year; the summer vacation, extending 
over a month and a half between June and 


SCHOOL DAYS 


69 


July; the Puja vacation in October came 
next, when schools closed for about a 
month; and last of all, the Christmas and 
the New Year’s holidays of two weeks. 

Besides the long vacations, we had a 
number of holidays mostly on the occa¬ 
sions of religious festivals (Hindu, Mo¬ 
hammedan, and Christian). The joys of 
our long vacation were often crushed by 
the assignment of long lessons by our 
teachers. The home tasks were dreaded 
by all the boys. It is not hard to find the 
reason for this; for example, during one 
of our long vacations one teacher asked us 
to work out at least three hundred prob¬ 
lems in arithmetic, two hundred in alge¬ 
bra, and one hundred in geometry. An¬ 
other expected the students to read about 
one hundred pages of geography and 
commit to memory the names of all the 
counties and county towns of Great 
Britain and Ireland as well as the States 
and capitals of the United States. Still 
another selected fifteen topics on which to 


70 WHEN 1 WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


write essays. I am not sure whether 
schools in America are in the habit of hav¬ 
ing the students learn the names of Indian 
provinces. I did not feel very eager to go 
to school when it reopened after a long 
vacation. That lack of enthusiasm was 
noticed by everybody in the family. 

I began the reading of the First Eng¬ 
lish Primer in our school when I was six 
and one-half years old. I had been fa¬ 
miliar with the alphabets and the first few 
lessons. Consequently a foreign language 
like English did not appear very hard to 
me. We did not learn the correct pronun¬ 
ciation of English words, as we were not 
taught by English-speaking teachers. In 
my eighth year English Grammar ap¬ 
peared to be very hard, but I got over the 
difficulty later. Most of the teachers in 
Indian schools are Indians (either Hindus 
or Mohammedans). Languages, history, 
geography, and drawing were my favorite 
subjects. My two elder sisters knew Eng¬ 
lish and Bengali fairly well for their age. 


SCHOOL DAYS 


71 


They always helped me in the preparation 
of my home lessons. 

Examinations were interesting episodes 
in our young lives. We had oral as well 
as written examinations, which came at 
the end of each half-year. Most of my 
classmates spent the last two weeks of the 
year in preparing for the annual examina¬ 
tions, on the result of which alone de¬ 
pended our promotion to the next higher 
class. There was very little cheating or 
“ cribbing ” at the written examinations, 
for our teachers, who acted as “ guards ” 
(as we called them) were very strict. If 
anybody was found copying from an¬ 
other’s paper or “ cribbing ” from notes, 
he was sure to be turned out of the ex¬ 
amination room and to be detained in the 
same class for another year. The burden 
of examination is so crushing that many 
students at school neglect their health and 
suffer severely from continued illness. 

On one occasion a classmate of mine 
snatched away my answer-paper in arith- 


72 WHEN l w AS A BOY IN INDIA 


metic and worked out several sums cor¬ 
rectly during the examination period. He 
passed in that paper with my name on it 
and threatened me with dire results if I 
dared to disclose his act to the examiner. 
When the marks came out, I discovered 
that for the first time in that school I had 
a grade of more than fifty per cent, in 
arithmetic,—which was very unusual for 
me. I felt ashamed, for I did not deserve 
that mark. 

When I was about eight years old, I 
read the story of George Washington in 
our English text book “ Royal Readers 
No. 2 ” (published by T. Nelson & Sons). 
That was my first introduction to the great 
American. About the same time I read, 
in a Bengali school book, the story of 
Theodore Parker’s early life. That emi¬ 
nent Bostonian’s love of knowledge cre¬ 
ated a thrill in my heart. A few years 
later, when I entered the high school, we 
had selections from “ The Autobiography 
of Benjamin Franklin ” and “ Uncle 


SCHOOL DAYS 


73 


Tom’s Cabin ” to read in our English 
class. By that time I finished reading a 
translation of “ Uncle Tom’s Cabin ” in 
our language. Not a few were the occa¬ 
sions when I shed tears over the pages of 
that book while reading it in the after¬ 
noons and evenings. Man’s inhumanity 
to man distressed me so much that I could 
not help reading and rereading certain 
portions of the book. 

My mother used to recite a couplet in 
Bengali which ran thus: 

■ ^ 9 

“ He who reads and writes, 

Has a car and a horse to ride! ” 

I do not know whether schoolboys in the 
United States know any such rhymes. 
But in my boyhood days those lines were 
on everybody’s lips. They were supposed 
to offer inducements to boys to prosecute 
their studies. Somehow or other they did 
not have any meaning for me. They 
failed to stir me up to read and write more 
than I was doing. Some of the Indian 


74 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


schools offer prizes (mostly in the shape 
of books) to their best students on the 
basis of the annual examination. At the 
end of my second year, on the occasion of 
the prize distribution, to my surprise I re¬ 
ceived the second prize in my class. It 
was a copy of “ The Life of James Watt ” 
and a history of the steam-engine. In that 
book I read all about Robert Fulton and 
the steamship. I saw also pictures of big 
American locomotives and railroad tracks. 
In my fourth year I got the first prize in 
my class. It was a copy of an illustrated 
edition of “ Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” I con¬ 
sidered that a real prize. Thus America 
was brought nearer home when I was very 
young. In those days, America appeared 
to me as a far-off dreamland. 

I have already described the Guru Mo- 
hashay (sir teacher) of a pathshald (ele¬ 
mentary school) who presides over it with 
a cane in his hand. The indiscriminate 
(or free) use of the cane by some teachers 
in the higher and better-equipped schools 


SCHOOL DAYS 


75 


robbed punishment of all its horrors. 
There was the dunce’s cap with the in¬ 
scription “ Ass ” on it. Several times I 
saw some of my schoolmates visiting dif¬ 
ferent classes along with another who ex¬ 
plained the nature of the crime for which 
he had been punished. Two other forms 
of punishment were very popular with 
certain teachers. To stand upon the bench 
or to kneel down on the floor of the class¬ 
room for half an hour, or a full period of 
fifty or fifty-five minutes, were such fa¬ 
vorites that some of the pupils used to call 
the teachers by the name of their favored 
form of punishment. I wonder whether 
the teachers had any knowledge of that! 

The punishment which we dreaded most 
was that of forcing us to pose like an arm¬ 
chair with two books or bricks on the 
palms of our hands, and without any rest 
on the back. Very few could stand this 
for more than five or ten minutes. I re¬ 
member also that one of my teachers made 
a rule that for every mistake we made in 


76 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

reciting our lessons in English we should 
receive one blow of his cane on the palm. 

The tricks which the schoolboys used 
to play on their teachers were very few. 
If the performers could be detected, the 
matter had to be referred to the head-mas¬ 
ter by the teacher, provided he had been 
without any fault in his dealings with the 
students. Some of the older teachers were 
in the habit of falling asleep in class while 
listening to the recitation. The teachers 
and students carried small boxes of snuff. 
The best-known trick practised on a 
teacher when he fell asleep was the plac¬ 
ing of a snuff-box under his nose. One of 
the daring heroes would volunteer his serv¬ 
ices and slowly step to the teacher’s chair 
and place the box of snuff in such a way 
that he would begin sneezing immediately. 
The class had already agreed not to betray 
the leader, and as a result the teacher tried 
in vain to detect the mischief-maker. 
Some of the Brahmin teachers, known as 
pandits, used to carry a tuft of hair on the 


SCHOOL DAYS 77 

crown of their heads. Whenever such a 
teacher fell asleep he was apt to be the 
victim of one of his students. I remember 
once how one of my classmates tied, with 
a piece of string, the tiki or shikha (tuft 
of hair) of a pandit to the back of his 
chair. After that marvelous feat a few of 
the students shouted, “ Pandit Mohay- 
shoy! Pandit Mohayshaya! (or Sir! 
Sir!) The head-master is coming!” 
And then came the after effect when the 
enraged teacher could not force his head 
from the back of the chair. He roared, 
threatened, and cursed the students. But 
by that time they had become so engrossed 
in their lessons (as they showed by their 
undivided attention to the pages of their 
books) that all the threats of the teacher 
fell on deaf ears. 


CHAPTER IV 


BOYHOOD MEMORIES 

i. Street Cries 

As soon as I found myself awake one 
winter morning in India, I heard the cry 
of boys: “ Murir Chakti, Cholar Chakti, 
Chirer Chakti.” It was the pedlers hawk¬ 
ing early morning breakfast-food in the 
shape of round slabs or balls of puffed 
rice, flattened or pressed rice, prepared 
with molasses. Shortly after I heard an 
older voice repeating, “ Chai Ivhajoor 
Rash,” and “ Chai tatka khajoor rash.” 
This meant that a man was going along 
with an earthen jar ( lmlsi ) on his shoul¬ 
ders. He was selling the fresh juice of 
the date palm. The unfermented juice is 
very cool, sweet, and refreshing. A little 
later a man would come up the street 

carrying a big, black earthen jar on his 

78 


BOYHOOD MEMORIES . 79 

head. He would cry aloud, “ Chai gaoa 
ghee,” or, “ Who wants pure clarified but¬ 
ter made of cow’s milk? ” In India we 
also use butter made of buffalo’s milk. 

We will suppose that it is almost nine 
o’clock. Children are getting ready for 
school. They are arranging their books 
and slates. There appears on the street a 
man with two small canvas bags slung 
over his two shoulders. His dress is soiled 
and he wears a short turban on his head. 
He cries, “ Juta, burush! selai! burush! ” 
He is the cobbler who mends my shoes 
and also polishes them in case I need a 
shine. He is a moving shoe-shine parlor 
and cobbler’s shop in one. I can have his 
services for a few cents. In his wake 
comes another slim and bewhiskered man 
with a small bundle under his arm. His 
cry is melodious, “ Ripukarma,” “ Who 
wants a darner? ” He is a Mohammedan 
by birth, and wears a colored checked skirt 
and a short vest. The professional darner 
may turn out to be a good tailor, too. 


80 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


And if I want, I can have my coat and 
shirt made by him in my house. Such are 
the advantages of Calcutta life. 

As the day advances and sunlight be¬ 
comes brighter, children can be seen walk¬ 
ing through the streets toward their 
schools. Cowherds are also on their way 
to the pastures leading their cows out of 
the homes of the people. Children meet 
a man on the street crying, “ Churi, 
kanchi, honti, shan!” He is carrying a 
big wheel on a wooden frame. He is the 
knife-, scissors-, and “ bonti-” sharpener 
or grinder. Bonti is the sword-shaped 
steel instrument which is fitted erect to a 
piece of wood. Every Hindu housewife 
uses it for cutting vegetables, and peeling 
potatoes or fruits. “ jBontis ” are also 
used in fish and meat stores for cutting 
fish and meat for the customers. 

As noon approaches, the short and shrill 
cry: “ Shil katave! ” is heard. The crier 
has a small cloth hag which he has placed 
on his right shoulder. The bag contains 


BOYHOOD MEMORIES 81 

two or three hammers and a similar num¬ 
ber of large and small flattened nails. He 
is going round sharpening the flat pieces 
of stones on which the spices are crushed 
every morning in Hindu homes for use in 
different kinds of cooking. 1 During the 
summer months in the afternoon any visi¬ 
tor to our city will see a man carrying a 
small wooden case on his head. The name 
of the “ Standard Oil Company of New 
York,” or “ Gossage’s Bar Soap,” may be 
found stamped on the box. He cries 
aloud, “ Pani pineka baraf.” (Accent 
on first word.) “ Ice to use with water.” 
So terrible is the heat of the glowing sun 
that one can drink ten glasses of iced 
water without quenching his thirst in the 
least. Many people wrap themselves with 
wet towels ( gdmchas ) made by Indian 
weavers on their hand looms. 

The afternoon advances. Several men 

1 Black and red pepper, mustard and tumeric are the 
principal spices used in cooking besides the garam 
mashla (or hot spices). 


82 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


with baskets approach the public squares, 
the schools and other places where they 
can display their articles before the chil¬ 
dren. They sell and sing and sing and 
sell, “ Chanachur garam,” or “ Abak 
jalpan,” or “ Chiner badam, ghoognidana 
nakaldana!” These men are selling 
boiled beans and peas mixed with bits of 
cocoanut and peanuts. One has for sale 
what is known as “ Thirty-two and one- 
half varieties of fried things,” peas, beans, 
rice, wheat, ginger, red pepper, green pep¬ 
per, black pepper, etc. No doubt all these 
are highly spiced, peppered, salted, and 
lemoned. They are very appetizing and 
children always run for them, if they have 
a few paishds (pennies) to spare,—just as 
children run for candy in the United 
States. One can also meet vendors of 
sweet candy made of sugar only. They 
deal in various kinds of representations of 
animals and other articles which are car¬ 
ried in push-carts or trays. The peanut- 
seller is also very much in evidence. In 




BOYHOOD MEMORIES 83 

Calcutta we call him “ Chiner badam- 
wola,” or “ the seller of the nut of China.” 

The gentle breeze from the south has 
been blowing for some time. People are 
in a restful mood. As the shades of even¬ 
ing approach, the streets of Calcutta have 
become filled with the cry of the Hindu 
ice-cream-sellers. They carry big earthen 
pots around which they wrap pieces of 
canvas. By this time, the lamplighters 
are rushing through the streets, either 
carrying their ladder or lighter. The 
streets are all lighted. “ Kulpi Ba-ra-f! ” 
That is the familiar cry. “ Ho, kulpi 
baraf-se Her, come here! ” shouts the boy. 
The ice-cream (kulpi baraf) vendor ap¬ 
proaches slowly. Pie unwraps his burden 
and opens the mouth of the earthen pot 
which is kept covered with an earthen 
plate. He asks invariably, like the men 
on the soda fountains of the United States, 
“ What flavor do you want? I have here 
pineapple, banana, mango, green cocoa- 
nut, or cream ( rndldi ),—which of these? ” 


84 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

As soon as the order is given the man takes 
out a five-inch tin tube, narrowed at one 
end and with the cover at the top sealed 
by flour paste. He turns the tube round 
and round by means of his two palms 
and asks his customer to bring a cup or a 
glass. In a few seconds he releases the 
ice-cream from the tin case. If one looks 
into the inside of the earthen pot he will 
find several chunks of ice and a lot of salt. 
This is pure Calcutta ice-cream, which 
tastes in some cases like sherbet as sold in 
the ice-cream parlors of the United States. 
Another type of ice-cream-sellers go 
round the city with the freezers, and dole 
out ice-cream direct from them. Hotels 
sell a better quality of ice-cream, which not 
only costs more, but is not within the easy 
reach of all people. 

Very few women of the upper classes 
go out of their houses to make purchases 
in stores or in the market. Those who ob¬ 
serve seclusion ( purdah) hardly ever walk 
through the streets. They travel in closed 


BOYHOOD MEMORIES 85 

carriages drawn by horses. A few years 
ago they were carried in pdlkis or palan¬ 
quins. During the forenoon and after¬ 
noon hours a number of fruit-, vegetable-, 
cloth-, and other vendors go round the 

houses exhibiting their articles before 

/ 

purdah women or zenana ladies. Both are 
of foreign origin, and the custom of seclu¬ 
sion grew in Hindu India since the days 
of the Mohammedans. Women in Cal- 
cutta do a great deal of their purchasing 
in this way, after much bargaining. The 
street cries of Calcutta, among others, 
give a very true picture of the city life. 
There are cries which are peculiar to the 
winter months; and some, like those of the 
iceman and the ice-cream-seller, are char¬ 
acteristic of the summer months. 

2, The Snake-Charmers and the Rope- 

Dancers 

Pain — pont — pin —sounds the music 
outside. “ Mother, shall I call the 
snake-charmer? ” asks the boy. Waiting 






86 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


anxiously for his mother’s reply, he leans 
out of the window. 

“ Go ahead. Call him, my child,” an¬ 
swers the mother. 

He is so expectant that the mother can 
hardly refuse him. He runs out of the 
house into the street and waves his hand. 

“Ho, Snake-Charmer! Come to our 
house! ” 

The snake-charmer, who is dressed in 
orange-colored dhuti or trousers, a loose 
shirt or a short coat, and a turban of the 
same color turns round the street corner 
and advances toward the house. 1 

He is playing on his peculiar flute a 
kind of sweet, but weird, music (which has 
some resemblance to the music of the bag¬ 
pipe, though a little louder). From both 
ends of a pole carried across his shoulders 
there are two slings. On each one of them 
he is carrying three or four covered wicker 

1 1 have seen snake-charmers who wear dhutis and 
loose shirts, as well as those who wear loose trousers 
and short coats. 


BOYHOOD MEMORIES 87 

baskets of different sizes. He lets these 
down on the street and continues playing 
the music. In the course of a few minutes 
people gather round him. Children from 
other houses in the neighborhood have 
come out to witness the tricks of the snake- 
charmers. 

When the snake-charmer sees that a 
sufficient number of men, women, and 
children have gathered round him, he be¬ 
gins to unpack his baskets. He takes off 
the cover from a basket and there is a big 
cobra in it. He begins to talk about 
snakes, their fangs, their abodes in hills 
and jungles. He pulls open the mouth of 
the snake and shows the fangs, to clear 
himself of the charge that he has destroyed 
those terrible weapons of defence which 
poisonous snakes always have. One by 
one he takes out a few more snakes and 
begins to play on the flute. The snakes 
raise their heads, spread their hoods and 
continue dancing, following closely the 
notes of the music. In this way he con- 


88 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


tinues for half an hour and empties one 
after another all the baskets, showing 
twelve or fifteen varieties of snakes and 
scorpions. 

When I was a boy of about seven years, 
I saw one of the snake-charmers pulling 
out snakes from every possible nook and 
corner of the neighborhood. He had a 
small towel in his hand. But before he 
went out in search of a new snake he had 
shown his towel to some member of the 
audience, who failed to detect any trace of 
a snake in it. It was really amazing! 

At the end the snake-charmer takes a 
small cup or a box (or he may even spread 
a long piece of cloth on the ground) and 
invites contribution from the audience. It 
is a free-will offering. The snake-charmer 
usually expects a larger sum from the 
house of the boy who first called him. So 
the boy’s mother unties the knot at one 
end of her robe which serves as her pocket- 
book. She hands him a silver coin (siki, 
adhulij or taka , i. e. s one-quarter, one-half. 


BOYHOOD MEMORIES 


89 


or one rupee 1 ), to her boy, who runs to 
the snake-charmer and presents it to him. 
The man is happy. He packs up his load, 
bows or salaams to his audience, and espe¬ 
cially to the boy’s mother, who is watch¬ 
ing him from the window, and then moves 
along the way playing the old snake- 
charmer’s music. Children know per¬ 
fectly well that there is nothing to fear 
from the snake-charmer. 

The rope-dancers in India show won¬ 
derful balancing feats high up in the air. 
Sometimes they run, jump, and dance on 
a piece of rope attached to two poles. At 
the same time they carry on their heads 
fifteen or twenty earthen jars placed one 
upon the other. 

3. Sadhus and Fakirs 
The longer winter evenings had come. 
My father and I stayed up very late one 
night—it was past ten o’clock. We were 
talking about our school days—father and 

1 A silver coin about the size of a half-dollar piece 
and valued at thirty-two cents. 


90 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

son comparing notes. A man holding a 
shaded kerosene-oil lamp stepped in and 
in the name of Allah muttered a few words 
ending with, “ M-u-s-k-i-1, A-s-h-a-n! ” 
This strange man was a Mohammedan 
who wanted to offer something to the altar 
of a Mohammedan saint. He was, there¬ 
fore, going round on his begging tour with 
a lighted lamp. I gave him a pice (half 
a cent in value). Whereupon he took up 
a pin and put a black mark on my fore¬ 
head with the soot of the lamp. Children 
in Calcutta are very familiar with this late 
evening visitor. This type of Moham¬ 
medan mendicant is favored even by the 
Hindus. Some of them worship at the 
shrine of Mohammedan saints just as 
Mohammedans do at the shrine of Hindu 
saints. Here Hindus and Mohammedans 
are not at daggers-drawn trying to cut 
each other’s throats as they are often rep¬ 
resented. Here at least they unite—for 
the saints of both communities provide 
their common meeting-ground. 


BOYHOOD MEMORIES 


91 


Friday is the sacred day of the Mo¬ 
hammedans. So it is with the Hindus 
also, besides Monday, Wednesday, and 
Thursday. The Hindus observe Sunday, 
not as a Sabbath day, but as a semi- 
auspicious occasion. The last days of the 
months are also sacred to the Hindus 
(Sankranti ). On such occasions streams 
of beggars can be seen lining up the streets 
and especially all ways leading toward the 
bathing-places on the banks of the Ganges. 
Some of them carry musical instruments, 
such as drums, cymbals, tambourines, 
violins, etc., and play on them and sing. 
There are others who sing only. A mendi¬ 
cant quartet can be seen at a street corner, 
singing devotional hymns with their mu¬ 
sical accompaniment. Beggar soloists 
with a violin or one-stringed instrument 
come and sing at the doors. Men, women, 
and children—all are alike welcome to this 
profession. They beg in the name of their 
respective gods or goddesses. Such beg¬ 
gars may carry a bowl, basket, or bag into 


92 WHEN 1 WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


which they consign everything they re¬ 
ceive. Those who can sing ask for alms 
at the end of their singing. Some of them 
have marks on their foreheads by which 
one can recognize their sects. “ Jay 
Radhe, duti bhikke pavo ma” (Victory 
be to Radha—[a goddess] may I have 
some alms, Mother), so cries one woman 
beggar. Some of these beggars have won¬ 
derful patience. They can wait for hours. 
Children are usually sent by women of the 
household to the waiting beggars. Most 
children love to offer alms to the beggars, 
because they feel that they are doing some¬ 
thing; they look forward to such an op¬ 
portunity. They approach the beggars 
with a cup of rice (or flour), a few vege¬ 
tables, or one paisha. The beggars accept 
that which they get and bless the children 
or the housewives, saying, “ May you have 
gold pen and inkstand to write with when 
you grow older,” or, “ May you be the 
queen of a king,” or, “ May you have lots 
of beautiful children and diamonds.” Not 



BOYHOOD MEMORIES 


93 


a few are the occasions when the beggars 
even criticize the quality of the alms or 
the studied negligence of the householders 
in not listening to their prayers. In some 
homes a very inferior quality of rice is 
kept especially for the beggars. 

There is another type of beggar who is 
very annoying. They come to extort 
alms by threats, if they fail in their en¬ 
treaties. Some belong to gangs controlled 
by a master. I have seen such masters or 
leaders of beggar gangs going around 
their beats, inspecting the actions of the 
members of the gangs. Deformed or dis¬ 
eased beggars on the wayside are sup¬ 
posed to cry aloud and express their in¬ 
tolerable pain and suffering by gestures 
to attract the attention. In this way on¬ 
lookers are moved to pity and to unloose 
their purse-strings. The inspectors who 
go around sometimes collect all the earn¬ 
ings of the beggars in their periodical 
rounds during the day. Some of the beg¬ 
gars not only make their voices hoarse by 


94 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


crying for alms for about an hour, but 
even curse the householders for not at¬ 
tending to the beggar’s demands, which 
he claims to be just, since charity blesses 
the giver more than the receiver. I liked 
to watch the beggars in my childhood. 

Sanyasis (friars) and sadhus (saints) 
are held in great veneration by the masses 
in India. They correspond to the Moham¬ 
medan fakirs (pronounced “ fokeer,” and 
not “ faker,” as in America). These men, 
by virtue of renouncing the common way 
of living, exercise a great influence on the 
lives of the people. Some of them do not 
talk on account of their acceptance of the 
vow of silence. Others do not eat nor 
drink. A great majority of the common 
sadhus go around the country begging for 
their food and raiment, however sparse 
that may be. They besmear their bodies 
from head to foot with ashes, and wear 
long, unkempt, matted hair coiled round 
their heads in various styles. Some of 
them are very scantily dressed, either 



Hindu tSAOHU ^ or Religious Mendicant. 













BOYHOOD MEMORIES 


95 


wearing a short loin-cloth or a piece of 
leopard or antelope skin. Some sadhus , 
indeed, wear no clothes at all. Another 
class appear more like monks of the West 
and have shaven heads. They wear the 
gairic (dark orange-colored) robe (like a 
tunic) of the mendicant friars. Some of 
them wear turbans while others go bare¬ 
headed. The Dandis cany a stick or staff 
with them. Most of the sadhus either 
carry a black begging-bowl made out of 
the shell of a gourd or pumpkin. That is 
the only vessel they are supposed to carry, 
besides a pair of tongs with which they 
tend the fire and collect the ashes to deco¬ 
rate their bodies. It is said that the ashes 
keep their bodies cool in summer, and 
warm in winter months. Some of the 
sanydsis have the title “ swami ” prefixed 
to their names. The etymological mean¬ 
ing of the word is “ husband ” or “ lord,” 
though all are, as one of our great men 
once said, “ Wifeless husbands.” 

Pictures typifying a sadliu show a man 


96 WHEN 1 WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


squatted on a nest of spikes, sometimes 
being drawn through the streets on wheels 
attached to a board. He always keeps one 
of his arms stretched upward and thereby 
stiffens the muscles for all time. These 
pictures are familiar to the average Amer¬ 
ican reader. They have been popularized 
by American Christian Missionaries. 
Some of them at least do these feats sim¬ 
ply to earn money as a juggler does. Peo¬ 
ple who understand that do not pay any 
respect to such men, for they know these 
are not marks of spirituality. Some of the 
sadhus carry herbs and stones which may 
have some medicinal value. Through the 
distribution of such remedies they exert 
an exaggerated influence on many. They 
also influence women by telling fortunes 
while the men of the household are away 
on business. 

In my early boyhood, I met many 
sadhus and fakirs who came to talk with 
my uncle. I did not like the professional 
sadhus . Even some of the unprofessional 


BOYHOOD MEMORIES 


97 


ones did not greatly interest me. One 
morning a sadhu dressed in a long, orange- 
colored robe came to our house. My fa¬ 
ther told us that he had met him the day 
before. After a short talk in Hindi, he 
opened his mouth and took out a perfectly 
round piece of black stone. He swallowed 
it again and showed the empty cavity of 
his mouth. Again and again he did the 
trick and we were all unable to account 
for the disappearance of the stone. He 
also printed several letters in Sanskrit on 
a piece of paper floating on a glass of 
water without making the least attempt to 
write. Last of all he asked my father to 
lend him a rupee. As soon as the rupee 
was handed to him he swallowed it. On 
my father’s demanding the coin back the 
sadhu flatly refused. We realized then 
that he was playing another trick. The 
price which he exacted from my father for 
showing these few tricks was rather heavy. 
He wanted to show others, but my father 
showed him the door. 


98 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

1 

In my tenth year a much-advertised 
sadhu came to Calcutta. He paraded 
through the streets with several hundred 
of his disciples. He stayed in Calcutta 
for several weeks, during which time he 
made great preparations for a sacrifice. 
He was carried around the city by bearers 
in a golden litter. Gold, silver, diamonds, 
figured profusely in everything carried in 
the processions (£. e. s flags, staffs, etc.); 
and he became the talk of the town. Some 
of his processions, as well as the parades 
I used to watch in Calcutta on the Vijoya- 
dasami day ( when the image of the god¬ 
dess Durga was thrown into the Ganges) 
remind me of the many parades I have 
witnessed in the United States, however 
different their character may be. 

There are good sadlius and bad sadlius, 
good fakirs, and bad fakirs. I have seen 
many fakirs treating diseases on street cor¬ 
ners without accepting a single penny as 
fee. I have seen good sadlius , too, though 
they are very few in number. As a rule 





/ 


BOYHOOD MEMORIES 99 

the majority of the good sadhus avoid 
publicity. The true swami or master is 
an interesting person, hut he shuns public¬ 
ity and cheap popularity, for he knows by 
yielding to the craze for publicity he re¬ 
nounces his claim to self-mastery. If 
properly trained and equipped, the sadlius 
and fakirs of India can be made useful 
servants of the people. That was their 
true vocation during the days of India’s 
greatness. Without any organization to 
back them up, the sadhus travel all over 
India from year’s end to year’s end. The 
three chief orders of the sadhus are those 
of Givi, Puri, and Blidrati. 


4 . The Bear Girl 

When I was about seven years old I 
saw a girl whom we called “ The Bear 
Girl.” She had been mothered by bears 
in the jungle. Hers is a sad, interesting 
story. At the Calcutta Orphanage in 
those days the superintendent was my fa¬ 
ther’s friend. That year, if I remember 

fmm: \ ‘ I 

) 

» 9 


100 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


correctly, saw one of the worst of Indian 
famines. People and cattle died by hun¬ 
dreds and thousands during that period. 
In fact, the loss by death in any of our 
famines is appalling. The only saving 
feature of the famine is that it never pre¬ 
vails all over India at the same time. 
Famines are usually followed by epi¬ 
demics such as cholera and smallpox. 
Bubonic plague is another epidemic which 
causes a great many deaths each year. 
Famines and epidemics are such frequent 
visitors that people become used to these 
unwelcome visits. 

My father’s friend was a famine-relief 
worker during that year. In the course of 
the administration of relief work he was 
walking, one day, through a forest path. 
He heard a peculiar cry, half human and 
half animal. He went toward the forest 
from which the cry came. Half-hidden 
among the trees, he saw the form of a 
child which appeared at first sight more 
like an animal of the jungle—a bear cub. 


BOYHOOD MEMORIES 


101 


When he approached nearer, he discovered 
that it was a girl who was walking like a 
bear. So he called a few of his co-workers, 
and with their help, brought her back to 
the relief camp. 

After careful observation, the superin¬ 
tendent of the Calcutta Orphanage found 
out that the girl resembled bear cubs in 
most of her behavior. She bore distinct 
marks of having been suckled by mother 
bears in jungles. The kind-hearted su¬ 
perintendent decided to take the girl to 
his orphanage and try to teach her human 
ways of living. When the “ bear girl ” 

i 

was brought down to Calcutta, many peo¬ 
ple went to the orphanage to see her. One 
evening our family made a trip to the or¬ 
phanage in one of those closed “ hackney 
carriages,” drawn by two horses, which are 
to be seen in Calcutta, conveying pas¬ 
sengers from one part of the city to an¬ 
other. On our arrival, the superintend¬ 
ent’s wife told us that it was extremely 
difficult for them to teach the girl the ways 


102 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


of human beings. She would act like an 
ordinary child for a while if shown what 
to do; she would watch, make mistakes, 
and try again. But after acting rather 
human for some time she would suddenly 
break loose and act like an animal, tearing 
her clothes, scattering everything that she 
could lay her hands upon, breaking furni¬ 
ture. We were told that in the dining¬ 
room she would go on eating with the 
other children as usual. In the middle of 
the meal she would mix up everything on 
the plate (a piece of banana leaf), and 
scatter all her food. Then she would try 
to eat the banana leaf instead of rice and 
cooked vegetables. She had undoubtedly 
a preference for raw articles of food. 

The strict life of civilization proved too 
much for our “ bear girl.” One day she 
was taken sick, and she died in the course 
of a few hours. We heard of similar cases 
in which human babies were nursed by 
animal mothers and brought up according 
to their ways of living. Such babies had 


BOYHOOD MEMORIES 103 

been either forsaken by parents during the 
worst days of famine or left unprotected 
after the death of their parents, until the 
animals (bear, tiger, etc.) came and be¬ 
came their foster mothers. A baby who 
had been brought up by tigers for several 
years and then restored to his parents by 
some hunters could not be tamed at all. 
His parents recognized him easily because 
he had a bangle on the wrist of his right 
arm. He could not be reeducated to hu¬ 
man modes of living. He had to be fed 
with raw meat and living animals. He 
could not stand erect like a man. He al¬ 
ways used to walk exactly like a tiger. 
Such incidents prove that probably there 
may be some truth in the stories about 
man’s friendship with animals. 

People in large cities like Calcutta do 
not realize how tragic the sufferings of 
famine-stricken districts are. My mother 
never allowed us to waste any food during 
our meals. She always reminded us of 
the thousands who were going hungry 


104 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

every day within the borders of India. 
During periods of famine vast tracts of 
country appear like deserts with dead 
bodies of men, women, and children as 
well as those of animals rotting around un¬ 
der the scorching rays of the sun. Hunger 
and thirst drive many to insanity. Some 
of them not only eat carcasses of animals 
but also the flesh of dead human bodies. 
Mothers leave their children and husbands, 
their wives. The failure of rain has, no 
doubt, something to do with famines. But 
the real cause lies in the ever-growing 
poverty of the people. The peasants suf¬ 
fer from heavy taxation. This seldom 
leaves any saving to be used during hard 
times. A large number of them have to 
borrow money at a high rate of interest 
almost half of the year in order to live. 
The Indian money-lender charges an ex¬ 
orbitant rate of interest. 




Street Scene in Delhi. 
















CHAPTER V 


GAMES AND SPORTS 

Next to eating, the most important 
thing in the life of the children is play. 
Children are the same everywhere in the 
world. If they can play, they will not go 
to school. Some of them will even forget 
all about their meals. When I was a boy 
I often played most of the games which 
boys love to play in our part of India. 
During my high-school days I took promi¬ 
nent part in sports. I was secretary of 
the football club of my class and often 
acted as umpire. 

While very young we played the game 
of “ hide-and-seek ” in the school as well 
as in our homes. Roys and girls played 
this game as it is played all the world over. 
As I was younger than most of my 

friends, in some games they used to treat 

105 


106 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

me as what they called “ bele khela ” or an 
extra minor, i. e ., not a full-fledged mem¬ 
ber of the party. I did not like the idea, 
but I had to submit to age, which counts a 
great deal in India. 

The most popular game played, not 
only by boys and girls but even by grown 
up men, is known as Ha-do-do, Kapati, 
Kit-kit, Chei-digle, and a few other names. 
It is played in a large rectangular court 
(either indoor or outdoor), between two 
parties consisting of three or more players 
on each side. The court is divided at the 
middle by a line which forms the base. 

The rules of Ha-do-do or Kapati are 
very simple. The two parties take turns 
in sending one of their members to the 
opposite court. The game consists of at¬ 
tack by a single member and defence by 
the entire party attacked. The attacking 
player goes to the base, takes a deep 
breath, and slowly enters the court of the 
rival party. He makes a sound like 
“ ha-do-do,” “ kapati,” “ kit-kit,” “ chel- 


GAMES AND SPORTS 


107 


digle,” or “ choo,” in order to prove that 
he is holding his breath. When he enters 
the opponent’s court, he waves his hand 
with a view to touch or strike as many 
members as he can. The players whom 
he touches are considered “ dead,” and re¬ 
tire for the rest of the game. All this 
time, he will have to hold his breath. If 
he loses it, he will become a dead member 
and retire. On the other hand, if the 
party attacked, or any member can get 
hold of him securely inside their court so 
that he is unable to reach the base or touch 
it by extending his hands or feet, he is 
“ dead ” and is retired for the rest of the 
game. 

In this way the attack and defence con¬ 
tinue during the course of the game. 
When an attacking member tries to get 
back to his home court or reach the base 
lying down with his fingers or toes ex¬ 
tended the real struggle begins. This is 
an exciting but inexpensive national game. 
When it is played in some of our public 


108 WEEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


parks no admission is charged. On some 
occasions I noticed that spectators became 
so excited that instead of cheering, they 
entered the courts and joined the game. 

Another game called guli danda or ball 
and bat is played with two pieces of sticks, 
one long and the other very short. The 
longer one, about thirty-five inches in 
length, is the danda and serves as a bat, 
while the shorter one, about five or six 
inches long, called guli , serves as a ball. 
It can be played with two or more players. 
The game starts from a base. As soon as 
the ball is struck it flies high up and re¬ 
turns to the ground. The distance from 
the base is measured by the length of the 
bat, which determines the score in the 
game. He who completes the highest 
number of points,—say fifty to one hun¬ 
dred—retires from the game as victorious. 
The one who scores the smallest number 
of points is the defeated player. His score 
is usually subtracted from the victor’s and 
he has to serve his victor at least the same 



GAMES AND SPORTS 


109 


number of points by which he has been 
defeated. That part of the game is called 
“ slaving,’ 5 for the defeated party has to 
run every time the ball flies up and bring 
it back to the victor at the base. There 
is not much pleasure either in “ slaving ” 
or making others “ slave,” as it is usually 
done in this game. I remember many oc¬ 
casions when the victor would drop this 
part entirely out of the game. 

Besides these games there are a few 
more called “ Thief! Thief!”, “ Land 
and Water,” and “ Blind man-bee.” The 
last one when played is always accom¬ 
panied by the cry “ Touch, touch, blind 
bee, touch me quick, if you can touch me 
at all!” There are numerous wishing 
games played with seeds of fruits and 
vegetables. But these are all indoor 
games. One very interesting game called 
“ Golakdham ” or “ Journey to Heaven ” 
has a very ancient origin. It is played on 
a printed chart with squares full of pic¬ 
tures of man’s life on earth beginning 


110 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


with home, farm, workshop, school, tem¬ 
ple, saloon, prison, etc. The idea is sim¬ 
ple. If one’s dice (in the shape of small 
shells) when cast take him to a bad place, 
he immediately goes down and begins all 
over again. For example, if one enters 
the saloon or the prison, he will have to 
go back and begin life again. In this way 
one is prevented from making a continu¬ 
ous journey toward “ heaven.” To me it 
appeared to be an instructive game which 
impresses on the minds of the players the 
good and the bad side of life with their 
consequences. 

Football, which is not so expensive as 
the other foreign games, can claim more 
players among schoolboys than any other 
game. The football which is played in 
India is what is known as “ soccer ” in the 
United States and “ Association ” in Eng¬ 
land as distinguished from “ Rugby.” 
“ Association ” football or “ Soccer ” foot¬ 
ball has become very popular, even in the 
country districts. Hockey and polo are 


GAMES AND SPORTS 111 

also played, the former by boys, and the 
latter by rich people. Polo originated in 
India several centuries ago, during the 
rule of the Hindu kings. 

In my school days I played marbles, 
especially in winter. I was never good at 
playing wooden tops, though I remember 
that the courtyard of our school did not 
have any space left for any other game 
than tops during part of the winter. In 
all our games, whenever we wanted to find 
out the one with whom the game was to 
begin we recited a couplet like the “ Eeny, 
meeny, miny, mo ” in the United States: 
“ Ram dui, Sare tin—Ghorar dim.” 
When translated into English it reads 
thus: “ One, two, three and half, what do 
I care for horse’s egg? ” 

During the football season in Calcutta, 
many games are played in the large open 
space near Fort William known as 
the Maidan (which literally means 
“ meadow ”). The city of Calcutta has 
the Maidan where more than twenty 


112 WHEN 1 WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

sporting clubs have their playgrounds. 
As football is more spectacular than 
cricket, it attracts more people. Shields, 
cups, and medals are offered to various 
clubs in connection with contested games. 
Sometimes more than one hundred thou¬ 
sand people gather round the field to 
watch a game. Admissions are charged 
for most of these games. The Indian 
Football Association of Calcutta supports 
some of the local charities out of the pro¬ 
ceeds of the admission tickets. A health¬ 
ful spirit of competition is created through 
these games. Almost every school and 
college in Calcutta has its football club. 

In recent years the Y. M. C. A., 
through its college and boys’ branches, has 
helped much in popularizing American 
games, like basketball, volley ball, etc. 
Swimming is another sport in which boys 
and girls in the country excel. Walking 
and running trips covering long distances 
are undertaken by the boys. Opportuni¬ 
ties for swimming in town as well as in the 


GAMES AND SPORTS 


113 


country are many. Girls learn to swim by 
resting on earthen or brass kalsi (water 
vessels). 

Wrestling is one of the most favored 
sports. One of my classmates has become 
a champion wrestler and has been doing 
very well in most of his encounters. Sev¬ 
eral years ago stick-and-sword playing 
was very popular among boys and young 
men. They learned those arts in Indian 
gymnasiums, all of which have been closed 
by orders of the government. The closing 
put a stop to the physical education of a 
great many boys who needed it very badly. 
The government feared that boys trained 
in the arts of playing stick-and-sword 
might start a rebellion. Consequently not 
only the carrying of arms but even of 
long and heavy sticks was prohibited. 

Flying paper kites is a very interesting 
game. In the course of such flying, two 
or three fliers may engage in a fight with 
their kites. They try to cut across the 
thread of their rivals by skillful manipula- 




114 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


tion of the thread in a crisscross way. They 
keep their thread in a reel made of bam¬ 
boo, with a handle at each end. A great 
deal of cheering goes on when one suc¬ 
ceeds in cutting the thread of his rival’s 
kite. Sometimes boys fly their kites on 
the flat and unprotected roofs of their 
houses in Calcutta. They become so ab¬ 
sorbed in their kites and the contest that 
they forget all about the dangers which 
may befall them if they slip. Every year 
a few accidents occur in Calcutta, in which 
boys sustain slight or heavy injuries by 
falling headlong from the roofs of their 
homes to the street or courtyard. The 
thread used in flying kites is carefully re¬ 
inforced with a special preparation of a 
paste from rice, and ground glass and 
mica. Sometimes boys dye the thread 
with different-colored dyes. The kites are 
usually made of very thin paper of all 
kinds of colors and sizes. 






CHAPTER VI 


FOOD AND DRESS 

What do the children eat in India? 

The great majority of the children— 
and grown people, too—eat puffed rice in 
the morning. Babies are fed with milk; 
but as good milk is not always and every¬ 
where available, young children have a 
very hard time. Where milk can be had, 
children get their share of it once or twice 
a day or oftener. In most houses, puffed 
rice (muri or murid), light molasses cake 
(batasd) , a few bits of cocoanut or a few 
slices of cucumbers or onions will be the 
only early breakfast. In Calcutta and 
other cities there are khabarer doluin, or 
food shops, where cooked food can be pur¬ 
chased for a few pennies. 

There are all kinds of food-vendors who 

go around the city hawking their articles. 

115 



116 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


Most of our sweets are made of milk, flour, 
and sugar. Some are cooked fresh every 
morning. In our home, some mornings 
we had a kind of pudding prepared from 
cream of wheat ( suji ) which is first fried 
with a little ghee (clarified butter) and 
then milk, sugar, and water are added. 
Some older people eat a handful of green 
peas (raw), chola (a kind of red pea) or 
split peas soaked in water with a little salt 
and a few pieces of ginger. 

The late breakfast comes between nine 
and eleven o’clock. In certain homes no 
early breakfast is served. Farmers in the 
villages do not eat any breakfast. They 
have one meal at noon. Whether in the 
morning or in the evening in India, we do 
not have exact meal hours for all members 
of the family, as the custom is in the West. 
In certain homes, first come, first served, 
is the rule. On account of the definite 
hours of opening of schools, colleges, 
courts, and offices, some families have to 
observe definite meal hours in the morn- 


FOOD AND DRESS 


117 


ing; but everybody is free in the evening. 
Women of the household eat last of all. 
This has been the custom from ancient 
times. This may appear very strange in 
the western part of the world, but it is a 
custom which in India is observed by rich 
and poor alike. Even homes which em¬ 
ploy cooks follow this rule. I remember 
that my father used to eat some nights at 
eleven or twelve o’clock. At present, in 
certain homes, men, women, and children, 
eat together and have definite hours, but 
they are the exceptions. 

In our home my mother used to cook 
most of the time. My father, uncles, sis¬ 
ters were all very good cooks. The morn¬ 
ing meal in an Indian home, or late break¬ 
fast, consists of bhat or cooked rice, which 
is the staple food in Bengal. A quantity 
of rice in the shape of a mound is placed 
at one end of a large metal plate. Banana 
leaves are also used as plates, in which 
case rice is ladled out of a big bowl. In 
Bengal we sit on the floor. A square 



118 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

wooden board (piri ), a small carpet or a 
mat forms the seat. The metal plates, or 
banana leaves, are placed just opposite 
the seats. The plates, cups, and glasses 
are made of kdnsa (a composition made of 
brass, copper, and zinc). When properly 
cleaned and polished, some of them look 
like silver. Besides rice, we eat a thin 
split-pea soup (without any meat in it). 
The soup is served in metal cups or is 
poured on the rice, and is usually spiced 
and cooked with tumeric and a little red 
pepper. 

The rice is cooked in large earthenware 
pots or brass vessels called " / iari” There 
are a hundred varieties of rice. Special 
stores for rice only are to be found in every 
city. Rice is also sold in markets and gro¬ 
ceries. Prices vary according to the qual¬ 
ity. There are red, white, and gray rice. 
Burma rice has a different shape. The 
stores usually sell rice in large paper bags 
or canvas bags—not in cardboard pack¬ 
ages, as is done in the United States. Rice 


FOOD AND DRESS 


119 


is cooked in such a way that every grain 
remains separate, as among the Japanese. 
In Bengal the water in which rice is cooked 
is not all absorbed by the rice in the process 
of cooking. It is thrown away, though it 
contains nutritious elements. The senti¬ 
ment of loyalty is very strong amongst 
the people of India. During the seizure 
of Arcot, the Indian sepoys kept alive 
many English soldiers by giving them 
their share of rice, while the former ate 
the watery part which is usually thrown 
away. The widows and orthodox Brah¬ 
mins eat atap rice which is sun-dried, i. e 
which has not been previously boiled with 
the husk. The majority of the people of 
Bengal eat rice which has been previously 
slightly boiled with the husk before it is 
purchased from the store. Farmers are 
in the habit of eating cold rice which gets 
sour. 

Besides rice and split-pea soup (of 
which there are about ten or twelve varie¬ 
ties), vegetables—either boiled or fried— 



120 WHEN I TE4S A BOY IN INDIA 


are served; eggplant, potatoes, cabbage, 
cauliflower, beet, turnip, green peas, 
pumpkin, gourd, tomatoes, patal ( tricho - 
santhes dioiea ), uchlie (momordica mura - 
icata), jhinge, karola, green bananas, 
green jack fruit, mocha (or banana em¬ 
bryo), etc., are used in making soups, 
hash and numerous other preparations 
which are very tasty. The split-pea soup 
is called “ dal ” On every boat sailing be¬ 
tween England and India “ dal ” is served 
for lunch and the item appears on the 
menu as “ dahl curry.” “ Dal ” is very 
nutritious, but there are many Indians who 
are so poor that they cannot afford to eat 
" dal ” oftener than once or twice a week. 

No tables, chairs, forks, knives, or 
spoons are used in Indian homes. People 
eat with the fingers of the right hand. In 
orthodox Plindu homes no one can eat 
with the fingers of the left hand. Those 
who have adopted the Western style of 
living in India (their number is very few) 
have all the paraphernalia of a regular din- 


FOOD AND DRESS 


121 


ing-room of Europe and America. Fish 
is a very popular food in Bengal. Fresh¬ 
water fishing is a great industry in our 
part of the country. People have not yet 
developed any great taste for what is 
known in the United States as sea food. 
Sometimes fish and vegetables are cooked 
together. Strict Brahmins do not eat any 
fish or meat. Those who eat meat prefer 
lamb. Beef is strictly forbidden for the 
Hindus . 1 The Mohammedans in Bengal 
eat meat (though very little), but in their 
cases pork, ham, and bacon are prohibited. 
In any case, even those Hindus who eat 
meat do it only occasionally. All Hindus 
or even the Buddhists are not strict vege¬ 
tarians. The majority of the high-caste 
Hindus, the Brahmins, are vegetarians, 
but one-seventh of the total population of 
India belongs to the lowest castes, who eat 
meat. 

In cities those who work in offices eat 

1 Some Hindus do not eat any meat except the flesh 
of lamb sacrificed before the god or goddess. 


122’ WHEN 1 WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

a little lunch after one o’clock. The Eng¬ 
lish habit of enjoying a cup of afternoon 
tea has found a place in large cities. Cal¬ 
cutta has several hundred tea shops. The 
evening meal is a hearty one. The time 
for this meal varies in different homes be¬ 
tween seven and ten o’clock, or later. 
There is a repetition of almost the same 
items as in breakfast, with a few changes 
here and there. One important change in 
the bill of fare can be noticed in case of 
certain families. Instead of repeating a 
course of rice (the morning dish) they 
prefer hand-made, flat, round loaves of 
bread, usually made very thin in Bengal 
—about half a dozen making a thickness 
of one inch. In the provinces farther 
north people prefer thick bread. Roti 
rooti, chapati, as it is called, differs from 
loochi or purl, which is richer. Loochi 
or purl is a kind of flour cake fried in 
ghee or melted butter. In some Bengal 
homes people prefer rooti (hand-made 
bread) or luchi (thin flour cake). Fruits 


FOOD AND DRESS 


123 


are also eaten by people who can afford 
them, in the course of the morning or 
evening meal. Sour soup and pickles 
form very important items of the menu. 
Curd is another item which figures promi¬ 
nently on the menus in Hindu homes. 

In matters of dress we are very fortu¬ 
nate in India. People in peninsular, or 
southern, India, do not require any heavy 
winter clothing. Only those who live in 
the northern part of India, especially in 
the mountain regions on the border of the 
Himalayas, need heavy winter clothing. 
In the plains, men, women, and children 
use light clothing almost all the year 
round, excepting in the two or three win¬ 
ter months when they use either heavy 
cotton or light woolen clothing. During 
winter months, in Calcutta and other parts 
of northern India, we wear either a shawl 
or a woolen coat or shirt. The common 
dress consists of a piece of white cotton 
cloth, five yards by one and one-half yards. 





124 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

This is folded round and fastened in the 
waist like a skirt. This piece of cloth may 
be either bordered with different colors or 
have no borders at all. 

Girls and women wear cloth of the same 
material as the men. Some women prefer 
cloths with wider borders, and the men 
use the thinner borders only. Among the 
Hindus, older men and widows wear all- 
white cloths without any borders . 1 In the 
case of the latter, this style of cloth serves 
as a mark of widowhood. On special oc¬ 
casions women wear colored cloths. Silk 
dress is worn only on special occasions and 
at the time of worship. No head-dress 
(like turban, cap, or hat) is worn by the 
people of Bengal. It is a mistake to as¬ 
sume that all Hindus wear turbans. At 
least forty million people of Bengal do 
not wear any head-dress. Married women 
and widows use part of their garments in 
covering the head in a manner like that of 

1 The riot of colors in their dress is seldom to be 
noticed in Bengal. 


FOOD AND DRESS 125 

the Hebrews of ancient times. Some of 
them draw it farther down so that it may 
serve as a veil also. 

A kind of loose shirt (with wide or nar¬ 
row sleeves) or a short coat called korta 
(or jama) may be the second piece of cloth¬ 
ing. The third piece is another small shirt 
of cotton measuring between two and 
three yards in length and between thirty 
and thirty-six inches in width. This is 
known as chudder or urani . The first and 
the third are the two essential parts of a 
Bengali Hindu’s robe. They are seam¬ 
less. 

Leather shoes are worn mostly in cities. 
Many people wear half or full slippers 
without any socks. There are some who 
use socks in winter. Men use a special 
style of wooden sandal which has either a 
knob or a strap to hold the foot. The suit 
of clothes which the Hindus wear is 
washed almost every day in cold water. 
Poor people wash their clothes three or 
four times a month with soap and water. 


126 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

Only in cities people send their clothes to 
the laundry or “ the washerman’s house,” 
as it is called in our part of India. There 
is no laundry run by the Chinese in India. 
The majority of the Chinese who live in 
India are either excellent carpenters or 
good shoemakers. Hindu women very 
seldom wear any shoes. 

The Hindu housewife is not troubled 
with big washings every week, like the 
housewife in the States. In manv homes 
self-help is practised as regards washing. 
Every adult member of the family washes 
his or her own clothing. Children’s cloth¬ 
ing is taken care of by others. No ma¬ 
chinery is used by washermen in India. 
In recent years a large number of wash¬ 
ermen’s agencies, which go by the name 
of laundry, have been introduced into Cal¬ 
cutta. In the country when people bathe 
in the tanks they either return to their 
homes wearing their wet clothes or change 
for a dry one at the bathing-#/m£ (steps). 



Banyan Tree in Madras. 












CHAPTER VII 


IN TOWN AND COUNTRY 

Nine-tenths of the people of India 
live in villages. Smoking is very common 
among the rural population. People 
carry their hooka, or hubble-bubble, when 
they go around the village. Smoking 
among women is not common. In the 
villages older people meet at the haitak - 
hand or atchala (parlor) of a friend’s 
house and play cards, chess, or dice. 
Sometimes these games are continued late 
into the night. Card-playing is more com¬ 
mon among younger people. I was never 
a good card-player, though I remember 
that my sisters played the game well. 
Chandimandap, or the open thatched hall, 
where the text of the Chandi (Hindu 
popular Scripture) is recited on cere¬ 
monial occasions in the village, is also used 

127 



128 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

as a club. Such a place corresponds to the 
bathing-steps of a pond or tank where 
women meet and discuss country politics. 
Boys, too, have their clubs. They meet 
on the village opens, in the houses of 
friends, or in the mango groves. 

During my boyhood days, I heard a 
great deal about the methods adopted by 
village schoolboys to tease their pandits or 
teachers. In addition to the small tuition 
for his services, the village schoolmaster 
expected gifts in kind from his pupils’ 
homes. Those who had plenty never 
grudged such gifts. On ceremonial oc¬ 
casions (like marriage, sraddha, or the 
rites for the dead), the teacher received a 
good share of the gifts. Tobacco was one 
of the articles which the schoolmaster most 
needed, all the year round. So he was 
constantly insisting on one student or an¬ 
other bringing him tobacco. Not only 
that, he ordered his scholars to prepare the, 
tobacco for him during school hours. 

The young students took hours in pre- 



129 


IN TOWN AND COUNTRY 

paring the tobacco. They did not like the 
job at all, but had to submit to the rule 
laid down by the schoolmaster. One of 
the ingenious students devised a means 
through which they could free themselves 
from the tyrannical practice. 

They got together and brought some 
red pepper from their homes. The next 
time one of them was asked to prepare the 
tobacco, he mixed the red pepper solution 
with the water in the hooka. As soon as 
the pandit started to smoke, he felt a ter¬ 
rible burning sensation in his mouth and 
throat. He was horrified and began to 
cough incessantly. Then he let the water 
come out of the hooka and discovered the 
plot that had been made against the guru 
mohashaya (sir teacher). This was a com¬ 
mon practice repeated in other schools. 
There would be always some students bold 
or naughty enough to hazard such a trick, 
even at the risk of being expelled from 
school. 

Boys in town, as well as in the country. 







130 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


are very clean in their habits. They bathe 
every day and wash their mouth with some 
home-made “ dental powder ” or “ dan- 
ton ” (stick from the branch of a niem- 
tree which is made into a kind of brush by 
chewing one end). Boys of the Brahmin 
caste perform their pujds (worship by re¬ 
peating the gdyatri and the sandhya texts 
in the mornings and the evenings). These 
are the preliminary items in every morn¬ 
ing’s program. They cannot eat their 
breakfast until they have performed these 
acts. 

When trains pass through country dis¬ 
tricts one may notice many villagers of 
the neighborhoods—men, women, and 
children, standing by the railroad lines and 
watching with great interest the engine 
and the cars rush past. Miles of fields of 
rice and wheat give a chance to observe 
the habits of the farmers in their fields. 
The quality of the cattle employed in 
farming is not always good. The Hindu 
farmers keep few animals. The Moham- 









131 


IN TOWN AND COUNTRY 

medans, on the other hand, keep some 
poultry and a few animals. They have no 
objection to eating meat, except pork or 
ham. 

On most of the railroad lines of India, 
there are three classes: the first, the second, 
and the third. On certain lines, in addi¬ 
tion to these three, there is an “ interme- 
diate ” class between the second and the 
third. The third class, which has the 
cheapest fare (about a cent and a half a 
mile), carries more passengers than any 
other. The first- and second-class cars 
can be compared with the first and the 
third classes of England and the first and 
the second of France. Many railroad sta¬ 
tions have elevated platforms. The third- 
class passengers suffer most for want of 
good drinking-water. Sometimes they 
are packed like sardines in cars for twelve 
or fifteen hours. At the wayside stations 
appear the sweet-vendor, the tea-seller, 
and the pani pande (the water-carrier for 
the Hindus), with his bucket, and the 


132 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

bkistee (for the Mohammedan) with his 
leather bag prepared out of a goat’s skin. 
Unlike American railroads, on very few 
trains can one go from one end of the train 
to the other. There are dining-cars at¬ 
tached to the important trains where meals 
are served, mostly for European pas¬ 
sengers. 

Music, in recent years, has not made 
much progress in India. For lack of sup¬ 
port and cultivation, it has languished in 
certain parts, though there are some very 
well trained masters. Popular music in 
the form of Sankirtans (religious singing 
and dancing), Ivathakathas (the singing 
in the course of religious readings and re¬ 
citals), the singing of the hauls , kirtanias, 
etc., has kept alive the taste for music. 
Music (both vocal and instrumental), how¬ 
ever, is about to enter into an era of new 
life. For some time it was confined to the 
professional classes (like dancing in which 
only professional dancers participate). 
Notwithstanding the professionalism, it is 


IN TOWN AND COUNTRY 


133 


wrong to assume that the people do not 
sing or encourage singing. Religious 
singing has always played an important 
part in Hindu life and there is no restric¬ 
tion against singing hymns by men, 
women, or children. Social dancing, as it 
is understood in the West, cannot be found 
anywhere in India except in the aboriginal 
communities. 

There are about a dozen varieties of 
stringed musical instruments. Ragas 
(with their feminine Raginis—personified 
notes of melodies) characterize Indian 
music. They are “ certain melodic 
schemes based on various modes and kevs, 
differentiated by the sequence and promi¬ 
nence of particular notes.” A point of con¬ 
siderable interest to the foreigner is that 
particular Ragas and Raginis are required 
to be sung at particular hours of the day, 
and the initiated really feel dissatisfied if 
the proper time is not chosen for its cor¬ 
responding tune. Certain powers are also 
ascribed to certain Ragas—or melody 



134 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


types— i. e., the bringing down of rains, 
the breaking forth of fire, etc. 

Music is taught and learned by the ear. 
That makes a good ear and good memory. 
A comparison with the music of the West¬ 
ern World is not possible. Indian melody 
has attained “ a greater complexity and 
elaboration than its Western sister; ” but 
there is “no such thing as harmony, or 
practically none, only the keynote, singly 
or in combination with dominant and sub¬ 
dominant being in accompanying songs or 
filling out instrumental music .” 1 The 
system of notation “ can only record the 
bare outlines of any musical scheme be¬ 
cause of the apparently endless profusion 
of cadences,” which adorn Hindu music 
and lead to improvisation rather than re¬ 
production. 

Here is a translation of one of the most 
popular national songs of our part of 
India, composed by one of our great poets 

1 Mrs. P. Chaudhuri’s (Srimati Indira Devi, niece of 
Rabindranath Tagore) Article, “ Music in India.” 


IN TOWN AND COUNTRY 135 

and dramatists, Dwijendra Lai Roy. The 
homes and streets of Bengal used to be 
filled with its music about fifteen years 
ago. In my boyhood days along with oth¬ 
ers, I learned the tune by listening again 
and again: 


O my Banga, 1 O my mother, O my nurse, O 
country mine, 

Why dishevelled are thy tresses, lustreless thy 
look divine? 

For thy seat this lowly dusty, for raiment this 
thy battered gear, 

When seventy million children call thee fondly, 
“ Mother Dear.” 

(There’s no pain, and there’s no shame, and 
there’s no grief, no sorrow’s brand, 

When seventy million voices sing in chorus, 
“ Motherland.”) Chorus. 

Here arose Lord Buddha great, who opened 
Nirvan’s gates above, 

Half the world still kneel before Him, worship¬ 
ping in fervent love, 

King Asoka spread his deeds from Kandhar to 
th’ azure main, 

Art thou not their country, Mother? Of these 
gods thy holy fame. 


1 Bengal. 


136 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


Chorus 

Once thy ships sailed freely o’er the waters of 
the eastern seas, 

Once thy sons o’er China, Japan, Thibet, led 
their learned lore, 

Is it thus and is it thou in rags and weeping 
evermore? 

****** 

Though thy light divine has vanished, and thy 
days are dark as night, 

Clouds will pass away and glory shine in lustre 
fresh and bright. 


CHAPTER VIII 


A CALCUTTA MARKET 

In my boyhood days, I often used to 
accompany my father to the market. If 
you ever go to India, visit at least some 
of the markets. One is sure to find there 
not only the produce of the Indian farm¬ 
ers, weavers, potters, blacksmiths, tin¬ 
smiths, carpenters, and others, but there 
at least one will come across people from 
all classes. Even some of the richest peo¬ 
ple who can command scores of servants 
will be found visiting the stores in the 
markets. 

Our house in Calcutta was very close to 
the largest Indian market in the city. I 
had, therefore, many opportunities to ob¬ 
serve the life of the market-place. Tele¬ 
phones are scarce in such a market, even 
to-day. One cannot order articles over 

137 



138 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

the telephone and have them delivered at 
the home. Very few homes in Calcutta 
have telephones. Once in a while I re¬ 
member that my father used to send or¬ 
ders by writing which some servant took 
to the store or to the market. 

Nootan Bazar, or the New Market of the 
Indian section of the city, occupies about 
thirty acres of land. It is the property of 
a millionaire family belonging to the 
“ gold merchant ” or Swarnabanik caste. 
Their house is known in Calcutta as the 
“ Marble Palace/’ Several hundred beg¬ 
gars, sadhus, and other persons, such as 
the blind, lame, etc., have their meals once 
a day in the charity of this house. This is 
one type of Hindu charity. Those who 
have must give to the poor. The house of 
the Malliks, as they are called, can afford 
to feed several hundred people every day 
because they receive from every stall in 
their market a regular contribution in 
kind. One who sells potatoes makes a gift 
of potatoes. The keeper of the rice store 







A CALCUTTA MARKET 139 

provides rice. In this way each con¬ 
tributes something toward the feeding of 
the poor. Such feeding of the poor is 
common on festival days as well as on spe¬ 
cial occasions like marriage and Sraddha 
(the sacrificial rites for the dead). When 
Queen Victoria and King Edward died, 
several thousands of poor people were fed 
on the streets. 

Almost everything can be bought at the 
Nootan Bazar. It has open places, cov¬ 
ered quadrangles, and stalls and shops of 
different proportions. We do not have 
“ fish-markets ” and “ meat-markets,” 
such as are so familiar to me in the United 
States. There are meat stalls and 
groceries outside of the markets, but they 
are usually small stores. One can always 
tell the nearness of a market from the 
noise which he can hear from a distance. 
Thousands of people come to this “ New 
Market ” every day to buy their food. 
Vegetables, fish, meat, and fruits are 
bought daily by the great majority of the 




140 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


people. There is no ice-chest in any 
Hindu home. Consequently few articles 
of food are preserved except in the winter 
months. Some of these articles are 
hawked every morning by small vendors. 
They come to one’s doors and the women 
of the household can have their choice. In 
certain stores the prices are fixed; but in 
others, especially in the smaller ones, bar¬ 
gaining goes on, creating the noise so char¬ 
acteristic of the Indian market-place. On 
rare occasions, buyer and seller may even 
come to blows in their disputes over the 
prices or the quality of the articles sold. 
The section set apart for the keepers of 
the fish-stalls is the most noisy in Calcutta 
markets. Wherever there is a great noise, 
that place is usually described as the fish- 
market. Fishermen and their wives keep 
the stalls. They use big earthen bowls 
filled with water, over which they place 
planks to sit upon, and so, with some of 
their fish still living, make sales to their 
customers. 


i 



A CALCUTTA MARKET 141 

i \ 

As a rule, farmers do not come to the 
Calcutta markets. They sell their pro¬ 
duce wholesale to retailers called fores, 
who bring their foodstuffs to the markets 
either in bullock carts or in large baskets. 

In the country, the case is different. 
There are certain fixed days once or twice 
a week when farmers, weavers, and potters 
come from the adjoining villages to the 
hat or market-place. They spend the 
major part of the day there and return 
home in the evening. But in Calcutta 
markets one can buy anything he likes up 
to nine or ten o’clock at night. A large 
number of the vegetable and fruit stalls 
keep their articles for show in big baskets, 
or spread them on a piece of mat or can¬ 
vas. Some have raised platforms of bam¬ 
boo or wood on which they keep their 
goods for show. They have scales, and 
use cast-iron weights, which are usually 
correct. One may notice, occasionally, a 
little defect in their scales on account of 
which the customers may be cheated, but 




142 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


such small tricks are very seldom prac¬ 
tised deliberately in Calcutta. 

The articles purchased are not always 
wrapped with paper or put in paper bags. 
Only grocers use paper and canvas bags 
for rice, flour, sugar, split peas, and such 
products. People who go to market 
either carry a basket in which they may 
place several empty vessels to be filled 
with oil, ghee (melted butter), or mo¬ 
lasses, or gather their purchases in a piece 
of hand-woven cloth called gamcha 
(towel), measuring forty by forty-five 
inches. The gamcha serves as a bag as 
well as a towel. During the rainy season 
those who keep their stalls in the open 
either hoist a big umbrella made of bam¬ 
boo and dried leaves, or erect a kind of 
temporary cane-work shed under which 
they can take shelter from the heavy rains 
and the scorching rays of the sun. 

I have seen some of the markets of 
America where farmers come once a week 
to sell their produce. They are very simi- 


A CALCUTTA MARKET 


143 


lar to the Indian hats (a is pronounced as 
the “ a ” in “ last”) in the country towns. 
People in India eat a great deal of rice. 
Whenever they buy rice or flour in large 
quantities, i . e forty or eighty pounds, the 
stores undertake to send it to the buyer’s 
home. They employ attendants who carry 
the rice or flour in large sacks containing 
between forty and one hundred and sixty 
pounds. The carriers place a padded 
cushion on their head or an improvised 
short, low turban which protects their head 
from their load. Porters at railroad sta¬ 
tions carry their heavy baggage in a simi¬ 
lar way. Carrying loads on one’s back is 
rare in India. 



CHAPTER IX 


MARRIAGE PRELIMINARIES 

Marriage ceremonies are performed in 
the homes. Unlike the Christian coun¬ 
tries, no marriage intentions are filed pre¬ 
vious to the ceremony. Hindu marriages 
are not registered. There is no divorce in 
Hindu society. A woman once married is 
always married. A man can marry as 
many times as he likes, but a woman can¬ 
not. The idea of sati or suttee (devoted 
wife) grew out of idealization of married 
life, and especially a wife’s love for her 
husband. 

Courtship is not allowed in Hindu so¬ 
ciety. Far back in the history of India, 
when early marriage was not the rule, we 
come across accounts of courtship in our 
classical literature. In ancient Hindu so¬ 
ciety, young men married at the end of 

144 


MARRIAGE PRELIMINARIES 145 


their period of study in the forest schools. 
They must have reached the age of thirty 
in those days. In free India, young men 
could choose their life partners. 

After the days of India’s subjection to 
foreign powers, several centuries ago, the 
social customs became more and more 
rigid. The Hindu lawgivers fixed, at last, 
ten years as the age of marriage for girls. 
They also thought that they would be able 
to preserve the spirit of harmony and 
unity of action by introducing very young 
girls into a joint family. Their aim was 
the interest of the joint family, to which all 
other individual interests were to be sub¬ 
ordinated. Girls, married at the early 
age of eight or ten years, grew into the 
love of other members of their husbands’ 
families. The practice of early marriage, 
no doubt, contributed to the increase in the 
number of child widows. Though child 
widows can get married now, very few 
such marriages take place. 

There was a time when social injustice 


146 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

in the form of different kinds of excom¬ 
munication was exercised against all vio¬ 
lators of the marriage laws. One who 
failed to have his daughter married at the 
age of ten could not get any invitation to 
dine or participate in the social events of 
his own caste. His washerman and bar¬ 
ber were forbidden to wash his clothes and 
shave him. Those were great hardships 
in the days when people did not own their 
own razors and could not wash their own 
clothes. But times have changed. Ex- 
communication cannot be so effective in 
these days. Some of the girls, however 
few their number may be, are going to 
schools. A few are attending college and 
devoting themselves to teaching and other 
forms of social work. The number of 
child marriages and child widows is lessen¬ 
ing. 

Marriages can be arranged only among 
members of the same caste. One who be¬ 
longs to the goldsmith caste cannot marry 
any one belonging to the blacksmith caste. 


MARRIAGE PRELIMINARIES 147 


Though marriages between the richest and 
the poorest members of the same caste are 
possible, the division of the Hindu society 
into numerous castes has always been a 
perplexing problem. Observance of caste 
rules, food rules, and touch rules have 
been possible in self-contained communi¬ 
ties. Hindu almanacs prescribe so many 
rules relating to food, travel, etc., that if 
one wants to observe them all it becomes 
hard to live. A few marriages outside the 
caste have been solemnized in recent years 
by some bold reformers. All my sisters 
were married outside the caste in which 
they were born. Such marriages outside 
the caste and consequently outside the Or¬ 
thodox Hindu societies can be solemnized 
only according to the rites of the Brahmo 
and the Arya Somajes, which do not rec¬ 
ognize caste. 

The professional match-maker plays an 
important part in most marriage negotia¬ 
tions. Sometimes the parties are directly 
approached, but the ghatak (feminine 


148 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


ghatkee) or match-maker is very much in 
evidence in Hindu homes which have mar¬ 
riageable sons and daughters. They are 
ceaseless in their attempts, and go from 
house to house selecting and offering suit¬ 
able brides and grooms who can easily be 
led to the marriage altar. Sometimes it 
takes months to come to a final conclusion. 
Members of both parties arrange meetings 
at which they inspect the boy and the girl 
and discuss the financial part of the pro¬ 
gram, including dowry, presents, enter¬ 
tainment of guests, public gifts, etc. If 
they come to an agreement they consult 
the horoscopes of both parties. They 
must have complementary qualities in or¬ 
der to make a successful marriage. Horo¬ 
scopes are cast by astrologers either a few 
months after the birth of a child or later. 
The agreement in horoscopes is essential. 
My father and mother never put any faith 
in horoscopes. So I did not have any 
horoscope which I could consult to guide 
my life. I remember I had a friend who 


MARRIAGE PRELIMINARIES 149 


was absolutely dependent on his horoscope 
and tried to mould his life as described in 
that chart (a long sheet of yellow paj)er). 

The asliirvad (or blessing) ceremony 
closes the marriage deal. The ceremony 
may be said to correspond somewhat to the 
engagement, as it is called in the West. 
But it differs from the engagement in one 
respect at least. Like marriage, it is a 
social affair. Friends and relatives must 
be present to bless the prospective bride 
and groom. Paddy (rice with husk), 
green grass, etc., are applied to the fore¬ 
head, the ear is touched with honey. A 
ring, necklace, gold watch, or gold coins 
are presented to the engaged parties. 
Many a proposal for marriage comes to 
nought on account of disagreement re¬ 
garding the question of dowry or presents. 
Of course, these are not compulsory and 
there are some who are awaking to a sense 
of injustice committed in the name of one 
of the sacred relations of human life. In 
poor families which have a number of 



150 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


daughters it is hard for the parents to 
supply dowry for all. In our part of In¬ 
dia, Hindu society lias suffered much 
through the operation of this unjust sys¬ 
tem which has commercialized marriage 
and injured family life. 

Marriage is compulsory in the case of 
all girls in the Orthodox Hindu society. 
India is a country where there is an excess 
of males. Still in certain parts of India, 
and among certain communities, the men 
have to provide the dowry. In our part 
of the country, the girl’s party provide it. 
Within the Orthodox Hindu society, 
therefore, no woman can be an unmarried 
woman. But the lot of the girls in poor 
families is very hard. Girls are not mar¬ 
ried to gods of temples in our part of 
India. It is a custom in certain sections of 
the south, which have also very stringent 
rules regarding caste, and especially the 
untouchables, who are not allowed to walk 
through certain streets and sidewalks. No 
such custom prevails in Bengal. 


CHAPTER X 


A HINDU WEDDING! 

V. 

The day of wedding has at last arrived. 
The ceremony is to be performed in the 
evening about 4 4 the cowdust ” ( godhuli) 
moment, as it is designated by the Hindu 
compilers of almanacs. At this time, the 
cows return to their homes from their pas¬ 
tures after raising a great deal of dust on 
the way. From the early afternoon hours 
the bride’s home presents a beautiful spec¬ 
tacle. It is decorated with evergreens, 
flowers, festoons, and flags. Elaborate ar¬ 
rangements have been made to keep the 
whole house well lighted. The atmosphere 
is sweet with perfume and flowers galore, 
but one can hardly notice the bride. We 
have a very common saying which is on 

the lips of everybody during the marriage 

151 




152 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

week. “ One who is to be married is not 
much in evidence, while the neighbors and 
relatives seem to have lost their sleep.” 

The case is almost the same at the 
groom’s house, but the signs of joy and 
merriment so characteristic of such aus¬ 
picious occasions are more in evidence at 
the bride’s house. Children in their very 
best clothes are seen strolling, running, 
and playing. Some are busy gossiping 
about one hundred and one trivial things, 
and all are on the tiptoe of expectation for 
the groom’s arrival. At regular intervals 
a quartet of musicians play on their flutes 
and drums. The music of the sanai 
(flute) has its peculiar charm. At the 
entrance to the bride’s home, stand two 
pitchers filled with water beside two 
banana-tree stalks which form the decora¬ 
tions, indicating the auspicious character 
of the occasion. You may also find a few 
beggars standing near the entrance or 
squatting on the street, awaiting alms. 

Inside the house one can smell the 


A HINDU WEDDING 


153 


savory meal which is being prepared for 
the guests. Several cooks have been kept 
busy from the early hours of the morning 
in preparing the elaborate meal to be 
served to the two classes of guests—the 
barjatras and the kanyajdtras (or the 
groom’s and bride’s parties). It takes 
about one or two weeks to invite all the 
guests. Near relatives and dear friends 
expect a personal invitation to the wed¬ 
ding to be extended by the father or the 
guardian of the parties. 

In this Hindu wedding at Calcutta, the 
bride’s people have made arrangements for 
entertaining about one thousand guests. 
One can imagine how big an affair it is. 
Some of the relatives of the bride have 
been visiting the bride’s family several 
days before the marriage. Just before the 
day preceding the marriage, there were 
preliminary functions, in connection with 
which several hundreds of people were fed. 
On one occasion the groom’s party sent 
presents to the bride two days before the 



154 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

marriage. About fifty people (mostly 
servants and maids from the homes of 
friends and relatives) carried those pres¬ 
ents on their shoulders or heads from the 
groom’s house to the home of the bride. 
They marched in procession through the 
streets. They were all dressed in loose 
garments which had been dyed pink or 
light red. Marriage is an occasion on 
which the red tint is very much in evidence. 
Invitations to weddings are usually 
printed on red stationery and addressed 
with red ink. Such preliminaries take up 
a considerable portion of the time of the 
two parties besides planning, entertaining, 
and receiving presents from friends. 

“ The groom is coming! The groom is 
coming!” So shout the children. Their 
cry passes from one to the other until it 
is heard within the house. 

With the sound of the playing of the 
band, the approach of the groom and his 
party is announced even to the inner 
apartments of the home where the bride is 


A HINDU WEDDING 


155 


sitting on a carpet or bed awaiting the one 
great moment of her life. Women are to 
be seen making toward the terrace, the 
windows and the verandas of the house to 
catch a glimpse of the groom and the 
bridal party. At last the groom arrives 
in an open carriage (a landau) drawn by 
several horses. Right behind his carriage 
there is a long row of carriages in which 
are seated the guests of the groom’s party. 
As soon as the groom’s carriage stops op¬ 
posite the bride’s door, the bride’s father 
or guardian, followed by a few friends, 
advances toward the carriage to welcome 
them. 

There was a time when the bride’s fa¬ 
ther used to carry the groom in his arms 
like a nurse and set him before the gather¬ 
ing of friends and relatives who, by that 
time, had assembled at the Sabha (meet¬ 
ing-place) . But this practice is now al¬ 
most obsolete. 

So the groom is conducted by the bride’s 
parents to the bibdlia sabha (or marriage 






156 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


parlor, or meeting-place). On the 
groom’s arrival, in the meantime, women 
of the household have been blowing their 
conch shells and making the sound “ ulu, 
ulu, ulu ”—a wedding greeting. The 
band is playing some wedding march and 
the quartet has started its peculiar Hindu 
music. 

The groom is dressed in dark red silk 
dhuti, a shirt of similar material, and a 
urdni (or wrapper) to match. Sometimes 
grooms wear trousers (silk or velvet) and 
chapkdns or achkans (light long coats), 
but in that case they have to change for the 
red silk dhuti, during the religious part of 
the ceremony. 

Following the welcome of the groom, 
every member of the party is garlanded 
and given a small bouquet of flowers. 
Pan, or prepared betel in khilis (or ba-< 
nana-leaf cases), is then served to all. To¬ 
bacco in water pipes (or hookas) is also 
served to those who wish to smoke. The 
guests, meanwhile, may be enjoying some 


A HINDU WEDDING 


157 


very good music. Professional or amateur 
singers entertain them. 

The wedding guests have a unique posi¬ 
tion in Hindu society. If they are not 
well received by the bride’s people, they 
may leave in a body,—an exodus which 
happens once in a while on such occasions. 
The Hindu moralists described an atithi 
or guest as the god of all; just as Agni 
(fire) is the god of the Brahmins, the 
Brahmin is the god of all other castes, 
and the husband is the god of the wife. 

In a few moments, the bride’s father or 
guardian appears before the assembly, and 
with folded palms asks the permission of 
all present to take the groom away from 
their midst into the inner apartments 
(andar mahal ). There a place is usually 
>et apart for the religious part of the cere- 
nony. As a preliminary to the religious 
:>art which is in charge of the priest, the 
vomen go through a ceremony more social 
han religious. The assembled guests hav- 
ng expressed their consent, the groom is 






158 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

led to the place where the women perform 
the stree achara or the rites of women. It 
is usually held in the courtyard or on the 
terrace. The bride and the groom stand 
on a piece of stone and the women (only 
married women are allowed to take part 
in the program) go around and around 
with lighted lamps and gifts. They blow 
the conch and shout the “ ulu, ulu, ulu” 
A richly colored and ornamented cork hat 
is placed on the head of the groom and a 
similar tiara is placed on the head of the 
bride. Then they make the bride sit on a 
wooden board held by two or three young 
men, who are near relatives, and who take 
her around and around the groom seven 
times. After completing the pradakshiri 
(circumambulation) which is known as 
sdtpak (or seven twists), they raise high 
the seat until the heads of the groom anc 
the bride are on the same level. A piece 
of colored cloth is then spread above theii 
heads and they are asked by the assemblec 
women to look at each other. In some 














A HINDU WEDDING 159 

cases, it may be that they then look at 
each other for the first time in life. For 
they have not met before this occasion— 
which is called subha drishti , or the mo¬ 
ment of auspicious look. The bride usu¬ 
ally draws the veil over her face most of 
the time and that accounts for her not 
having looked at the face of the groom all 
this time. This part of the ceremony is 
enjoyed most by women, who can laugh 
and joke to their heart’s desire. 

The religious part of the Hindu wed¬ 
ding is the most significant. It puts the 
seal on the marriage bond. Before the 
>acred fire lighted in a small hole or fire- 
dace, the groom repeats the marriage 
nantra (sacred texts). Hindu marriage 
s a sacrament and not a contract. In this 
t resembles the Roman Catholic idea of 
bam*age. The religious part, therefore, 
ft essential. The ends of the dark-red silk 
arment of bride and groom are tied at 
lie end as symbolic of the union. They 
ho exchange garlands. At the conclu- 





160 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

sion of the ceremony, they are allowed to 
retire to the bridal room, where they are 
taken in charge by women who try to keep 
them awake all night. The bride and the 
groom are also allowed to eat for the first 
time during the day at the end of their 
period of fast of twenty-four hours. T hus 
the seriousness as well as the joy of the 
affair is always emphasized by the cere¬ 
monials. 

Let us now return to the guests. While 
we were busy observing the religious part 
of the ceremony, the guests were asked to 
retire to the dining-rooms, or terraces, 
which have been converted into dining- 
halls. A large canopy over the terraces 
has given it a tent-like appearance. The 
place is scrupulously clean, though it lacks 
the table, chairs, linens, silverware, and 
crockery that are the usual paraphernalia 
of dining-halls in the West. The entire 
floor is covered with long rows of square 
mats, opposite which have been placed sec¬ 
tions of banana leaves with some earthen 





A HINDU WEDDING 


161 


ware glasses, cups, and small plates. The 
leaves are covered with at least ten or 
twelve courses. After a short while cooks 
and waiters are to be seen going around 
and repeating some of the courses. Peo¬ 
ple eat to their heart’s content and express 
their satisfaction at the arrangements 
made. They praise the quality of the food, 
and finally rise from their seats offering 
a prayer (either silent or expressed) for 
the newly married: 

“ May the gods bless the couple! May 
they be happy and prosperous! May they 
keep up the good name of the fathers! ” 

The guests all rejoice at the end of the 
sumptuous feast and return to their homes 
with the memories of a happy wedding 
enshrined in their hearts. Such is a 
Hindu wedding. 




CHAPTER XI 


HINDU TEMPLES 


Early in life Hindu mothers, grand¬ 
mothers, and aunts see that the girls in 


the family are trained in the practice of 


their religion. This is usually called 
Hindu dharma (or Hinduism). The 
Hindus claim that their religion is the 
eternal religion and the risliis (sages), who 


were the forerunners of their religion were 


trikalajna (or knowers of time in its triple 
aspects,—the past, the present and the fu- 
ture). I may mention here to avoid any 
confusion on the part of the readers, that 
the religion of the Hindus is not Bud¬ 
dhism. A man from India is not neces¬ 
sarily a Buddhist as lie is usually supposed 
to be by many in the West. Certain 
Buddhist teachings, however, have been 

recognized in Hinduism. 

162 


HINDU TEMPLES 


163 


The temples in villages and the family 
sanctuaries in connection with many 
Hindu homes take the place of the Sun¬ 
day schools in America. The religious ed¬ 
ucation of the boys rests with the male 
members and the priests, but the mother 
and the other women of the household ex¬ 
ert great influence in moulding a child’s 
religious life. Hindu religious life at least 
for the majority of women and children is 
ritualistic. A large number of details 
have to be attended to in connection with 
the family worship, such as flowers have 
to be gathered, sandal-wood paste has to 
be prepared, incense has to be burned, the 
food offering has to be arranged, and the 
metal dishes of the sanctuarv have to be 
cleaned. Besides the practical side, the 
theoretical part is usually left in charge 
of priests who arrange Kathakathas ,— 
readings from Scriptures. On such occa¬ 
sions the members of the family with all 
their friends gather in front of the sanctu¬ 
ary or temple door. They listen most at- 


164 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

tentively to all readings from popular 
Scriptures (Puranas ). 

I remember the family sanctuary of my 
uncle. When we were very young, my 
sisters and I liked to watch the morning 
or evening service at the family sanctuary. 
The priest, Jogin Thakur, a Brahmin, 
used to come twice daily. Even now I 
can see him enter the sanctuary with 
bowed head. He leaves his slippers at the 
foot of the staircase leading to the sanc¬ 
tuary. As soon as he gets in, he finds all 
the offerings (such as food, flowers, and 
incense) well arranged in metal or stone 
cups and plates. The place is full of the 
sweet smell of the incense burning on 
special incense-holders. Fresh flowers, 
bel or bilva (wood-apple) leaves, sandal¬ 
wood paste, are in their usual places. A 
cup of milk or cold drink in summer 
(consisting of some kind of fruit syrup, 
watermelon, wood-apple, mango) occupies 
a prominent place among the offerings. 
On one plate is a quantity of uncooked 


HINDU TEMPLES 


165 


rice. On another, there are small pieces 
of fruits (apples, bananas, mangoes, or¬ 
anges, pineapples). Another still bears 
sweets ( sandesh) and light sugar cakes 
(bat as a ). 

The priest begins the worship by ring¬ 
ing a small brass bell. If I happen to be 
there I take up a gong (of the shape of a 
tambourine) and begin striking it with a 
piece of strong stick. With the noise of 
kansar (gong) and ghantd (bell), the 
worship proceeds. All through the wor¬ 
ship the priest utters mantras (texts) in 
Sanskrit which I cannot understand very 
much (not having yet fully learned the 
language of the gods). He then goes 
through the process of fanning the god 
with a folded handkerchief and offering 
food and drink by means of the other 
hand, while he is ringing the bell all the 
time with his left hand. He usually car¬ 
ries a gamcha (towel) with him. Into 
that he pours the contents of the different 
plates of offerings. He may leave a part 


166 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


of the offerings as prosad for the wor¬ 
shippers. When he comes out of the 
sanctuary he meets me and other boys and 
girls who have by that time assembled 
there. He stops and talks with us and 
offers each one either fruits or sweets. 
All the children are happy, for they have 
had something to eat. Some kneel down in 
front of the sanctuaiy and bow their heads 
in salutation to the god who is the pre¬ 
server of all life. 

The evening service is more important 
and interesting. It is usually a service of 
five lighted lamps—the panclia pradip. 
On a brass stand are attached five small 
lamps. The hollow of each lamp contains 
a small wick which is soaked in several 
drops of pure ghee (butter melted), for 
the gods cannot be offered any oil. The 
priest comes and takes up the bell in his 
left hand and turns the panclia pradip 
around and around with his right hand. 
The worshippers gather near the sanctu¬ 
ary door and stand watching the ceremony 


HINDU TEMPLES 


167 


with folded palms. There is a sense of 
absorption in certain faces which is no¬ 
ticed often on the occasion of the vesper 
service or arati, as the evening service is 
usually called. The last item in the serv¬ 
ice of worship consists of tucking the god 
into his bed and drawing the mosquito cur¬ 
tain. At the conclusion of the ceremony, 
the worshippers either prostrate them¬ 
selves in a kneeling posture or bow their 
heads again and again, touching the 
ground. Women and girls take one end 
of their garnients and pass it round their 
neck when they are in an attitude of de¬ 
votion. 

Girls before their early teens are taught 
many acts of worship in the course of 
which they offer prayers to the gods for 
good things of life; for husbands like the 
hero-god (of the epic Ramdyana) Sri 
Ramchandra. They pray for strength 
that they may be good and pure wives and 
mothers like Sita, Savitri, Draupadi, 
Danayanti—the heroines of the great 


168 WHEN 1 WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

epics of India. In these simple acts of 
worship they do not have any priests. The 
girls sometimes mould the symbols of their 
gods with their own hands. Boys of the 
higher castes are also required to go 
through certain ceremonies. Some are in¬ 
itiated into the cult of the twice-born men 
at the age of ten or later. They shave 
their heads, observe the vow of silence, do 
not look at any woman, fast, beg, and 
carry a beggar’s bag and a stick before 
they receive the mantra (or the words of 
spiritual culture) from their guru (pre¬ 
ceptor). I witnessed many such cere¬ 
monies in my young days; but, as my par¬ 
ents were not of the orthodox profession, 
I did not have to go through any one of 
these rites. 

The Vratas like Punyipooker, Senjuti, 
and others, are observed in Hindu homes 
by girls in summer and autumn. In our 
liberal religious groups we have practices 
which have certain resemblances to the 
older ones. Here is one which I quote 


Ke.SHUB CUUNDER SEN. 

The great Hindu social and religious reformer (1838-1884). 
Leader of the Brahmo Somaj movement in India. 





HINDU TEMPLES 


169 


from Nava Samkitd, written by our great 
leader, Keshub Chunder Sen: 


Unto boys and girls pictorial lessons are 
of great value. They serve to impress on 
tender and susceptible hearts the great 
truths of religion and morality and 
awaken and educate the best sentiments of 
the young in a. most effective manner. 
Therefore, while young, between the ages 
of ten and twelve years, boys and girls 
shall take the vow of Chitra Sadhan or 
pictorial training, and be educated by il¬ 
lustrative drawings for the period of a 
week. These drawings shall be simple and 
rough and shall be executed on the house 
floor by means of white paint made of 
chalk or rice powder mixed with water. 
The lessons shall be given and the draw¬ 
ings executed by the mother or an elder 
sister, or some other female guardian reg¬ 
ularly every afternoon. 

The candidates shall be taught either in 
groups or each individually. On the first 
day the children shall put on new cloth 
and a flower garland shall be put around 
the neck. They shall enter the sanctuary 
led by the mother and reverently bow be¬ 
fore the Lord, their heads touching the 



170 WHEN 1 WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


ground. The mother shall then lead them 
on to the place of Sadhan (training), and 
begin the ceremony thus: 

All shall unitedly say, “ Glory to the 
God of the young, to the loving god of boys 
and girls be glory evermore. To our dear 
heavenly Father and Mother we give 
glory.” 

The candidate shall say, “ This holy vow 
is for my true welfare. God bless His 
child! ” 

The mother shall first draw figure 1, 
and the child shall place flowers over it 
and say, “ One God, one Faith, one Fam¬ 
ily, one Scripture, one Salvation.” 

Over the second figure representing the 
flag of the New Dispensation (the religion 
of harmony and synthesis with the lotus, 
the cross, the trident, and the symbolic 
word “ om ” inscribed on it) 1 the child 
shall similarly scatter flowers and say, 
“ Victory to the New Dispensation (the 
religion of the Spirit).” 

The third figure shall represent the map 
of Asia, Europe, Africa and America and 
the child in honoring it shall say, “ On 
earth peace and good-will and among the 
four continents unity.” 

1 The symbols of all the great world religions. 


HINDU TEMPLES 


171 


Then the child shall pass on to the other 
drawings on the floor, placing fresh flow¬ 
ers on each, and saying as follows: 

" Figure of a money-bag —More pre¬ 
cious is truth than earthly treasure. 

“ Sun and moon —Bright like the sun 
may my righteousness be, and tender like 
the moon my love. 

“ River —Like the river, may my life 
flow on, giving the water of life to thou¬ 
sands and scattering plenty and prosperity 
on all sides. 

" Sandal-tree —Like the sandal-tree, 
may I give perfume to the enemy who 
smites and persecutes me. 

“ Mountain —May my faith be firm as 
a rock and my character immovable as the 
Himalaya.” 

If the candidate be a girl, the following 
drawings shall be added in her case: 

" Necklace —As necklace adorns the 
neck, may chastity be my necklace. 

“ Bangles —May charity be the dia¬ 
mond ornament of my hands. 

“ Veil —May modesty be my veil.” 

The candidate shall bow saying, “ Great 
is this vow; the Lord make it fruitful.” 

After the ceremony is over, the draw- 




172 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


ings shall be washed and effaced, and the 
same practice shall be repeated daily for 
a week. On the last day the candidate 
shall say at the conclusion of the Cere¬ 
mony, 44 Peace, Peace, Peace. He shall 
feed those children who are his best friends 
and companions, give honor to his parents 
and elders, and give alms to the poor, and 
food to cattle, and birds, and insects.” 1 

1 New Samhita, by Keshub Chunder Sen, Calcutta, 
Brahmo Tract Society. 


CHAPTER XII 


DOMESTIC CUSTOMS 

The scarcity of good milk in our part 
of India prevents the growth of healthy 
child life. The supply of the best quality 
of milk is very limited in large cities. I 
remember how much trouble my parents 
had with the milkmen or milkmaids who 
supplied us with milk. There are very 
few dairies in India which are managed 
scientifically. Many artificial milk-food 
companies have a large market in India. 
Mellin’s, Horlick’s, Allenbury’s, Ben- 
ger’s, Nestle’s, and a host of other brands 
appear in India. Sometimes their prod¬ 
ucts are used by villagers. They adver¬ 
tise extensively in all Indian papers. 

Good milk produced in the farms in the 
country districts is available in certain 

places. In the United States milk is sold 

173 


174 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


in bottles. We seldom saw any bottled 
milk in Calcutta until my twelfth year. 
A few well-equipped dairy farms have 
been opened in recent years and are sell¬ 
ing bottled and sealed milk. There was 
a time, about twenty years ago, when many 
milkmen around Calcutta diluted their 
milk with water. When my father dis¬ 
covered the fact, he bought a lactometer 
and cautioned the milkman that on the dis¬ 
covery of any trace of water the milk 
would be refused or thrown away. I re¬ 
member how eagerly I watched the lac¬ 
tometer test applied to milk supplied to our 
house. On the complaint of many resi¬ 
dents of Calcutta, the health department 
decided to put a stop to the practice of 
milk adulteration. Milk inspectors were 
placed at every important railroad station 
and street corner. They stopped milk* 
men, examined the milk, and if they found 
any water in the milk-cans, they emptied 
the can into the street. The scene was 
common in my boyhood days. 











DOMESTIC CUSTOMS 175 

There is a story told about the folly of 
milk adulteration. A milkman had to stop 
-very day beside a tank on the way to the 
lomes of his customers. He would go 
lown the steps of the ghat and fill his two 
:ans half-and-half with milk and water. 
3n a tall tree beside the tank, there lived 
i monkey that watched the action of the 
nilkman every day. After six months, 
he milkman saved enough money (almost 
lalf of the amount he received from the 
ale of milk) to buy more cows. So one 
lay he counted carefully the amount he 
ad saved and put the coins in a long cloth 
ag which he wound around his waist. 
This is one of the ways in which people 
iarry their money in India.) As soon as 
e approached the bank he took off his 
;urse and placed it at the base of the tree 
|nd went toward the ghat (steps) with his 
un in order to fill it with water. He did 
ot know that he had been watched almost 
oery day by a monkey that sat on the 
1 ranch of a tree and followed his every 


176 WEEN 1 WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

movement. The sight of the money-hag 
made the monkey smile. Slowly he de¬ 
scended from the tree, took the money¬ 
bag, unloosened the purse-string and with 
a few strides came to the edge of the bank 
quite unnoticed. He emptied the purse of 
all its contents and climbed up the tree 
after leaving the bag exactly at the spot 
where he had found it. The milkman on 
his return discovered the empty bag. He 
was furious and began to curse the un¬ 
known thief. Suddenly he caught sight of 
the monkey, making grimaces at him. 
Whereupon the milkman realized the 
monkey had played a trick on him. But 
the monkey opened his mouth and in¬ 
formed him that the money had not been 
stolen at all. Pointing at the tank, he 
added that it was left exactly at the place 
where it really belonged, for the milkmar 
had his can filled half with water. There- 
fore, half of the money from the sale oi 
the milk mixed with water belonged to the 
bank which supplied the water. It is hare 






DOMESTIC CUSTOMS 177 

for people who want to make immediate 
profit to see how they injure themselves 
by trying to deceive others. 

For cooking purposes, we use mustard 
oil in our part of India. Ghee , or melted 
butter, is also used. In southern India 
people use cocoanut oil and gingeley qil 
for cooking. Some of the very strict veg¬ 
etarian sects use a great deal of butter and 
milk. One of the happy-go-lucky sects of 
India is said to be the originators of a 
proverb “ Rinam kritwa ghritam pibet 
“ Drink melted butter even by running 
into debt,” or “Eat, drink, and be merry, 
for to-morrow we die.” My mother came 
from a vegetarian family, and we are more 
or less vegetarians, though not very strict. 

Before coming to the United States, 
very seldom did I taste any canned fruit 
or vegetables. There is no such industry 
as canning in India. The last war showed 
its possibilities, but the prices of canned 
goods are so high that they are placed be¬ 
yond the reach of persons with limited 


178 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

means. We have plenty of cocoanuts, 
dates, peaches, palms, bananas, pears, 
mangoes, jams, watermelons, papayas, 
grapes, and apples, and many varieties of 
berries, melons, and nuts which can be pre¬ 
served and used during seasons of scarcity 
(failure of crops). 

Dadhiy or a preparation of sweetened or 
unsweetened sour milk (either thin or 
thick) is used by most of the Hindus. It 
is a very healthful food on account of the 
presence of lactic acid. 

No meat fat is used by the Hindus in 
their cooking. On account of the adulter¬ 
ation of ghee with meat fat in recent years 
special laws have been passed to stop the 
practice. Meat fat is considered in the 
same light as meat itself. I never saw any 
animal fat except twice—first, when I 
saw a tiger skinned after it had been killed 
by hunters and, second, when my father 
bought a can to prepare some medicine. 
Besides the three kinds of oil already 
mentioned, there are at least half a dozen 








DOMESTIC CUSTOMS 179 

more varieties of oil made of vegetable 
seeds. 

When I was a boy of about nine years, 
Lord Curzon became Viceroy and Gov¬ 
ernor-General of India. He was a great 
friend of the English tea-planters. With 
their help he devised a plan of populariz¬ 
ing the habit of tea-drinking among the 
people. Prizes were offered to buyers of 
tea; clean but cheap tea-shops were 
opened at street corners; tea-vendors with 
a burning coal-stove and a boiling tea¬ 
kettle went around the streets selling tea 
in earthenware cups to poor people. 
Even villages were invaded by tea-sales¬ 
men. The result was very satisfactory 
from the tea-planters’ point of view. 
Within a comparatively short period, tea 
became one of the popular drinks. 
Whether in summer or in winter, the In¬ 
dian Tea Supply Corporation advises peo¬ 
ple to drink tea, for it quenches thirst in 
mmmer and gives warmth in winter. Tea 
las made a triumphant progress through- 


180 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

out the length and breadth of India in 
the course of the last twenty years. In 
many city homes one will notice to-day 
men, women, and children waiting for 
their early morning cup. There are some 
who drink it in the afternoon and evening, 
but not with their principal meals. Cof¬ 
fee is drunk more in southern India. In 
many wayside railroad stations, when 
trains stop tea-sellers hawk their tea by 
crying aloud, “ Garam Cha,” “ Cha 
Garam.” 

Several years before Lord Curzon’s ar¬ 
rival in India, my father introduced the 
drinking of tea in our home in the mora¬ 
ine:. At first we did not have a sufficient 
number of cups to go round. So for the 
first few days we used to take turns in 
drinking from cups while the rest man¬ 
aged with glasses. 

Next to the United States, India is the 
country which produces the largest 
amount of tobacco every year. Though I 
never smoked in my life, I watched many 



DOMESTIC CUSTOMS 181 

of our people smoking their water pipes 
( hookas ). My uncle was a great smoker 
and had different styles of water pipes 
which he used on different occasions. The 
most common and the cheapest hooka is 
made out of a dried and polished cocoanut 
shell, through the upper part of which a 
cocoanut shell is passed. A hole is bored 
on the side at the spot occupied by the 
eyes. A small funnel-shaped earthen pot 
(kalke) is placed at the top of the tube 
where tobacco is deposited on a few pieces 
of charcoal or a small coal cake {tike). 
The inside of the shell is filled with water. 
A little fire applied to the charcoal or tike 
starts the smoking apparatus. Sometimes 
it is placed on brass or electro-plated 
stands. A long tube or a short pipe is 
attached to the hole on the side, and one 
can smoke either sitting straight or lying 
down in a reclining position. The smoke 
masses through the water and leaves the 
Doisonous part of tobacco there. The to- 
meco is used after being made into a dark 





182 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


paste prepared with scents, spices, and 
molasses. The Mohammedans excel in 
the art of making tobacco. The Moham¬ 
medans of India are not Turks, for whom 
they are mistaken by many in the West. 
Besides the smoking and chewing of to¬ 
bacco and taking snuff, the habit of chew¬ 
ing pan (betel) leaves rolled with a little 
lime, catechu, a few bits of cinnamon, betel 
nuts, cardamum, cloves, etc., is very prev¬ 
alent. It reddens the tongue and the 
teeth for the time being. 



a 

a 

s 

a 

a 3 

o3 . 

^ i—i 

g 

s •*» 
2 p 

'T ° 

SH ^ 

© ©- 
© r ~~* 
P £ 

© a 

a 2 

2 * 
cc o 

® .a" 

a ^ 

o3 

A*3 

,o 2 

.a~ 

05 

05 05 

M a 

^ 4) 

<*-i & 

o o 

2 >» 

(h --. 

4) i—i 

03 

'S, a 

OX) *_ 

a o 

03 '*-' 

>73 r 

O *-H 

-m O 
® ~ 
a 3 ’£ 
^ 05 

£Q 

* t» 

t- +3 

-S a 
a a 
© co 

o 

© 

a 3 






CHAPTER XIII 


HINDU FESTIVALS 

The chief Hindu festival of the year 
(in Bengal) is known as the Durga Puja 
or Durgotsav. The great goddess Durga, 
with her arms extended riding on a lion, 
killing an Asura (demon) with a spear, 
and surrounded by her whole family, visits 
the Hindu home every October in order to 
receive the worship of her devotees. The 
festival is known by different names in 
other parts of India, but the worship is 
conducted with more pomp and solemnity 
in Bengal than in any other part of India. 
The Puja season is marked by great re- 
joicing. The Hindus refer to the occasion 
as the coming of the mother. Two weeks 
before the festival, beggars and singers go 
around chanting the Agamani (or coming 

in advance) hymns. These hymns are all 

183 




184 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


marked by a human touch which appeals 
immediately to the listeners. It is hard 
for anybody born and brought up in 
Bengal to resist their appeal. 

People dress in their best clothing and 
meet their friends with the utmost cor¬ 
diality. Members of the same family liv¬ 
ing in different parts of the country come 
together under the old family roof and 
hold their annual reunions. The goddess 
Durga is said to have been worshipped by 
the epic-hero Sri Ramachandra before and 
after his successful expedition against 
Ravana—the ten-headed demon king of 
Lanka (Ceylon ). 1 

The worship of Durga is continued for 
four days at the end of which the image is 
thrown into the river or the village tank. 
In some homes the building of the image 
begins at least a month before the date 
specified in the almanac, if not earlier. 

1 A good translation of the Ramayana and the Ma- 
habharata by Romesh Dutt (in the Everyman’s Library) 
will be very interesting reading. 



H1NBJJ FESTIVALS 


185 


The image is made out of clay and dif¬ 
ferent kinds of paints, and numerous tin¬ 
sels made of zinc, lead, or tin. 

Children enjoy the festival most, not 
only because they have, on that occasion, 
new clothes to wear and good food to eat, 
but because they can buy toys and receive 
presents from others, too. Theatres, con¬ 
certs, professional dancing and singing 
form parts of the program. The Durga 
Puja, like the Christmas season of the 
West, is the festival for rich and poor, 
high and low, learned and illiterate. 

The last day when the image is thrown 
into the river Ganges (or into some tank, 
if the Ganges is not near) is the day of 
universal rejoicing and reunion. People 
greet each other; embrace each other. The 
younger ones “ take the dust ” of the eld¬ 
ers’ feet as a mark of respect for age and 
relationship. Everybody is supposed to 
eat something sweet (“ sweetening his 
mouth,” as it is called) and to drink a 
small glassful of siddhi or bhang (a kind 


186 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


of narcotic called Indian hemp). Many 
past enmities are forgiven and forgotten 
on this occasion. Like the Christmas sea¬ 
son, peace and good-will reign. 

Animals (goats and a few buffaloes) 
are sacrificed before the image of the god¬ 
dess in some houses. But there are homes 
where vegetables and fruits have been 
substituted for the animal sacrifices. 

How different this festival is from the 
Christmas of the Western World! But I 
am sure children enjoy it as much as the 
children of Europe and America enjoy 
their Christmas, and perhaps more. Un¬ 
der English rule, the Christmas season is 
being recognized as a holiday season in 
India. Who does not like a holiday?—a 
vacation? So Christmas is hailed with 
great delight in India as the baradin (or 
great day), although not so much for its 
religious significance as for its great social 
value. Large cities like Calcutta, Bom¬ 
bay, Madras, and Rangoon, celebrate 
Christmas in their own ways. The 



HINDU FESTIVALS 


187 


European as well as parts of the Indian 
sections are decorated and Christmas cakes 
and buns are displayed in the windows of 
the bakeries and confectioneries. 


CHAPTER XIV 


INDIAN VILLAGES 

An Indian village with a number of 
thatched and a few tiled cottages of larger 
size has some associations which I shall 
never forget. I knew one of the residents 
of the village—a good Brahmin who lived, 
worked, and died for the improvement of 
the village. The nearest railroad station 
is at a distance of about six or seven miles. 
The village is without any plans. Most of 
the people are poor. They plough their 
own fields, raise a few cattle for dairy 
purposes, and sell some of the vegetables 
and fruits. The majority of the villagers 
are Hindus. There are a few Moham¬ 
medans. There may be a few weavers, 
potters, housebuilders, and other such 
workers. Besides these, very few trades 
could be found in the village which I have 

in mind. There is a village doctor who 

188 



INDIAN VILLAGES 


189 


dispenses medicine and treats diseases. 
How far he is qualified for the work I do 
not know. 

When I first came to know of this vil¬ 
lage of S-, I paid several visits to that 

place in company with some of my friends. 
The streets, lanes, and byways are uneven 
and poorly laid out. The people are very 
simple and very hard-working. They use 
simple implements for ploughing, win¬ 
nowing, and husking the grains. No com¬ 
plicated machinery is used. In the cot¬ 
tages one will find the oil lamp burning at 
night. That type of open earthenware 
lamp has been burning in many hamlets 
in every part of India all through succes¬ 
sive centuries, notwithstanding the rise 
and fall of empires, or changes of govern¬ 
ment. The Indian prcidip, langal 
(plough), and dhenki (husking-machine) 
and the spinning-wheel are the symbols of 
the Indian villagers’ love for the past. 

The use of the most simple plough by 
the farmers, who employ a team of oxen 



190 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


to drive the plough, accounts for the lon£ 
hours of labor from the early hours of th( 
morning to sunset. Horses are nowherd 
used in India for farming. Deep plough! 
ing is not necessary in many parts o 
northern India. Therefore, the simpL 
implements, primitive though they are, ar<i 
serviceable. i 

“ The Bengal plough is very much th 
same as the Greek and Roman one, thoug] 
it has not the mechanical adjustments o 
its English namesake. The wooden cou] 
ter is shod with iron, which serves the pui 
pose of the ‘ shining stove.’ The plough 
tail which is inclined to the ploughshare a 
an acute angle, is furnished with a shoi 
handle, by means of which the peasant 
guides the share and presses it into th 
earth. At the point of the share and ta 
is a hole through which passes a beam, t 
the end of which is attached the yokr 
When the machine is set a-going, it is kej Jr 
tight hv ropes attaching the yoke to tE 
plough-tail.” 1 

There are two or three houses of Brahe 

1 Lee Behari Day —Bengal Peasant Life , 18-19. 








INDIAN VILLAGES 191 


jnins in the village. The people count the 
:e lumber of houses belonging to different 
•caste groups. Besides the Brahmins there 
i-re other castes like the Jvayasthas 
j(clerks), Chasi (farmers), Goalas or Gop 
lcmilkmen), Tili (oilmen), Bene (mer¬ 
chants) , and Tanti (weavers). In certain 
illages the members of different castes 
ve in different districts just as the Ital- 
[ inS ’ ^ ree ^ s ’ fhe Chinese, and others 
’ ve in different sections of American 


J f ties. Brahmin para, or the row of the 

Mrahmins, Telipara, Kayasthapara, etc., 

ye such sections. Members of the same 
_ # 

r iste like to live in the same neighborhood 
(i ^cause the sense of community unites and 
^eps them together. 

Some villages have their temples and 
^hers have shrines at the base of a tree 
f on a street corner. The village of 

■j-has no temple. There are several 

>nds and tanks. The majority of these 
1 e so full of dirt and decayed matter that 
eir water cannot be used for drinking. 








192 WHEN 1 WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

After many attempts to keep at least on< 
of them clean so that the water may be fi 
for drinking, my friend told me that h< 
succeeded in impressing on the resident 
that the health of the village depended oi 
their taking care of at least one tank. Th 
trouble begins when men, women, am 
children bathe in the same tank from whic 
they draw their drinking-water. Th 
river Ganges is at a distance of about te I 
miles from the village; carrying drinking 
water from the river is out of the question 
In some Indian villages rules have bee< 
made to keep the tanks free from dirt am 
decayed matter. There must be no batll 
ing and washing of clothes and dishes i 
the tanks. Men, women, and childre 
come to the bathing tank. They bath 
swim, and splash water on each other. 1 
some villages there are two bathing-steA 
—one for the men and the other f(* 
women, while in others there are ded 
wells in the houses of well-to-do peop] 
In the absence of any well-organizi 













INDIAN TILLAGES 193 

Women’s clubs, the bathing-steps of tanks 
fcrve the purpose. Women meet their 
eiends there and talk to their hearts’ con- 
nt. 

i The village of S-has a small school. 

i le schoolmaster is looked upon with 
i(eat respect. He helps the villagers in 
i ilding new roads, keeping the paths and 
iks clear of rubbish and dry leaves. He 
ei o acts as the village scribe. The post- 
$ ice is at a distance of seven miles. So 
)i i villagers do not receive any mail ex- 
t )t once or twice a week. If any one 
d nts to receive higher education in a high 
Stool, he will have to walk a distance of 
i )ut twelve miles every day to go to the 
e irest school. 

Ik flfe is very simple in the villages. Peo- 
who live in thatched houses made of 
efnboo, straw, and mud sometimes suf- 
f( terribly during the rainy season. As a 
lei 3, most of the cottages are built on a 
jd higher than the street. The char- 
21 eristics of cottage building are reflected 


i 







194 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

in the temples and the mosques of BengaJ 
They have a curved roof, and pointed 
eaves built upon a bamboo stretcher, whk 
gives them strength and helps them :j 
throwing off rain; in fact, the housetop 
resemble the domes of temples with th 
shape of a lotus-bulb. The lotus-buli 
shaped tops and horseshoe arches insi< 
the cottages are very distinctive of Indi; 
architecture. The lotus flower and le] 
are so prominent everywhere in tanks ai t 
temples that their forms have been work 
into the warp and woof of Indian life. 

As a rule, villages are very dark - 
night. Streets are not lighted. The rk 
/growth of trees and shrubs makes the t 
mosphere all the more dark. To relie in 
the impenetrable darkness of certain qu; 
ters, the glowworms are the only source 
light. There are open fields like the rk 
fields and long stretches of uncultival id 
land. The different portions of land ;n 
longing to a number of owners are marl tt 
by low partitions called &l. Someth] 


INDIAN VILLAGES 


195 


ne can walk across the field through the 

Is. 

Most of the cottages in our part of In- 
ia are scrupulously clean. Only those 
ho have been reduced to poverty through 
mtinued sickness, litigation, or some 
her untoward event, show any trace of 
hcleanliness. The farmer, notwithstand- 
g his lack of resources and scientific 
liowledge of agriculture, is a sober man 
d wants to work hard in order to sup- 
>rt his family. He is practically the 
mer of the land, though the right of 
oprietorship belongs to the zamidar (or 
idowner). He holds the land on con- 
ion of paying a rent every year. As 
tig as he pays the rent he cannot be 
J f eted from his land. The zamidar is re- 
(jnsible to the government for the pay¬ 
out of the revenue. In certain parts of 
iidia the government acts as the landlord, 
psequently there is no middleman be¬ 
en the government and the tenant. 
Hen the farmer fails to pay his rent, his 





196 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

portion is sold to the highest bidder at 
public auction. 

The locations in a village are marke 
by different names. No street or lane hs 
any name given to it, as in cities. Bt 
they are designated by certain objects c 
the presence of a certain class of people i 
the neighborhood, as, for example, Goa 
Para (the street where Plari Mukhejee 
house stands), Shitalatola (the pla< 
where the shrine of the smallpox godde 
Shitala stands), Banda Battola (or c 
mented fig-tree’s foot), Barwaritola i 
common meeting-place of the village 
Panchanontola (the place of the g( 
Panchanan), and Shareshwartola (tl 
place of the lord of the bull). 

The farmers raise two crops during t 
year. The aus dhfin (or the spring ric 
and the dman dhari (or the winter crop 
rice) are well-known names in Beng 
The former takes less time in ripeni 
while the latter is the principal crc 
Failure of rain in the summer months i 







INDIAN VILLAGES 197 

mnts for scarcity of dman dhan and may 
ad to famines. There is a ceremony ob- 
rved in Hindu homes which corresponds 
* the American Thanksgiving. It is 
tiled Navanna, or New Rice, and comes 
the month of Agrahayan (November). 
more elaborate feast of cakes and pud- 
ngs, however, is arranged during the 
•xt month. Children look forward to 
e latter, for so many varieties of cakes 
e prepared on the occasion that they last 
week. 

During festivals the villagers meet at 
2 Barwaritola, where they may witness a 
tra (village theatre) performance pre- 
ited by a group of players who act under 
canopy (without any stage setting) 
ler in an open place or a thatched au- 

i rium. The jatras have for their sub- 
s stories of old Indian heroes (espe- 
y from the Ramayana and the Maha- 
*ata). The players also produce some 
es and problem plays (of recent 
gin). Music is an essential part of the 






198 WHEN 1 WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

jatras. Indian dramatic art in its origin; 
form can be studied in the folk dramas an 
folk songs which the jatras present. A 
in the case of English drama during tl 
days of Shakespeare, no woman takes pa 
in the jatras. Many were the afternooi 
and evenings that I spent during my bo; 
hood watching the performances and fc 
lowing their stories. At present we ha 1 
public theatres in large cities where pr 
fessional actors and actresses take part 
plays written by some of our very emine 
playwrights. But these modern pla 
produced in imitation of the Western tb 
atres have not been able to attract my i 
tention. At present many villages ha 
their concert and theatre clubs. 




CHAPTER XV 


, INDIAN CITIES 

During my grandmother’s young days 
\iere were not more than one hundred 

ll 

biles of railroad in India. To-day India 
as about thirty thousand miles of rail- 
pad. All these railroads have been built, 
Sr the most part, by Indian labor, 
eventy or eighty years ago, people tray- 
led by means of pdlkis (palanquins), 
\ulis (stretchers or litters), boats, and 
c irriages drawn by bulls and horses. The 
xintry is studded with temples, shrines 
tid sacred spots of various description. 
>n account of great distances between 
le’s city or village and the temple city or 
lace of pilgrimage, those who undertook 
le journey had to travel either by boat 
’ by walking through caravan routes, 
[any used to get sick and die on their way. 







200 WHEN l WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


Because of the unsettled condition of the 
country, resulting from the break-up of 
the Mohammedan empire, and the wran¬ 
gling for supremacy among the European 
powers (notably the English and the 
French), robbers, thieves, and murderers 
roamed about boldly. Many pilgrims lost 
their lives at the hands of these desper¬ 
adoes. Consequently those who wanted to 
visit the pilgrim centers went there almost 
at the last part of their lives. They would 
go prepared to die, for who would not like 
to die near the house or the city of God? 
Pilgrimages, therefore, were risky under¬ 
takings. In those days, pilgrims would 
take their last farewell of their friends and 
relations, and draw up their wills before 
setting out on a pilgrimage. 

Conditions have greatly changed since 
my grandmother’s time; they are now 
changing more rapidly than they did in 
my father’s day. People now visit the 
places of pilgrimages in thousands and 
tens of thousands. Centers such as Be- 








INDIAN CITIES 


201 


nares, Puri, Allahabad, and Muttra are 
Meccas for several million pilgrims every 
year. Monks and laymen flock here from 
all parts of India. Benares is the most 
sacred spot in all India. It is the Jeru¬ 
salem of the Hindus. Like Rome, all 
roads in India lead to Benares. People 
who live there in the hope of dying on the 
banks of the Ganges and having their 
ashes thrown into the river, believe that by 
so doing they will at death go straight 
to heaven like Elijah of the Old Testa¬ 
ment. 

\ 

The city with its numerous temples, 
glidts (bathing-stairs) and winding streets 
paved with stone shows clearly that there 
is something out of the ordinary in its at¬ 
mosphere. Marigold, red hibiscus, the 
vakul (or Mimuspos Elengi), the lotus, 
and green leaves, are to be found at every 
approach to a temple or a ghat. There 
are several chatras, or public kitchens, and 
dining-halls, maintained by Hindu princes 
and landholders (zamidars). Travelers, 


202 WHEN 1 WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

students, and monks get their meals free 
at those places. Hindu society in its best 
days aimed at keeping intellectual and re¬ 
ligious leaders above all want. The 
chatras are remnants of that attitude of 
the Hindus. The Dharmashalas provide 
rooms for lodging either on payment of a 
small fee or altogether free. Those are 
the nearest approaches to Western hotels 
and inns. 

The temple of Yisweswar (the lord of 
the universe)—a representation of Shiva 
and the Manikarnika ghat are always 
crowded. In the evening, the former at¬ 
tracts a large crowd of devoted worship¬ 
pers who attend the drati or the worship 
of the lighted lamp. Flowers are offered 
and incense galore is burned in the course 
of the service. The sight of the devoted 
group of worshippers making their obei¬ 
sance to the god as a mark of respect is al¬ 
ways worth watching. 

Benares, it is said, has as many good 
men as bad ones. And that is character- 



Benares and the Ganges River. 














INDIAN CITIES 


203 


istic of the twentieth century as pointed 
out by C. M. Sheldon in his book for boys, 
“ The Twentieth Door.” Any modern 
city can make a similar claim. One of my 
American Christian Missionary friends 
always attached the adjective “ wicked ” 
before the names of such Indian cities as 
Calcutta, Howrah, and Benares. They 
are no more wicked than similar cities in 
other parts of the world. Because people 
from every part of India come and stop 
there for a short period, a class of people 
take advantage of the simplicity and ig¬ 
norance of the visitors. Besides the in¬ 
numerable specimens of sadhns, and 
sanyasis who are to be seen at the ghats 
and approaches to all temples, there is a 
class of men called pandas who have made 
Benares famous. They are the priests’ 
agents and guides. Just as when one ar¬ 
rives at a railroad station in any city of 
Europe and America, he is accosted by a 
hotel agent; similarly in Benares and 
other pilgrim centers of India one meets 


204 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


the pandas who act as guides. They go 
straight to a man, ask his name, and claim 
him as one of his clients whose ancestors 
when they visited Benares either availed 
themselves of the help of that panda or his 
predecessor in business. They carry a 
written record with them by means of 
which they seek to establish the genuine¬ 
ness of their claims. I know their over¬ 
tures are very annoying, at times, just as 
are the overtures of many so-called guides 
and agents who stand at the street corners 
of Paris, Marseilles, Naples, and other 
European cities. 


Benares 

In the outskirts of Benares, in a place 
called Sarnath, I watched for a long time 
the extensive ruins of ancient buildings. 
In the neighborhood was the famous deer 
park of the days of the great Indian 
teacher, Gautama Buddha. There he 
lived and taught. The place where he 
preached his first sermon is still marked 


INDIAN CITIES 


205 


by a stupa (mound). The columns of the 
famous King Asoka, the beloved of the 
gods, still stands near the garden. A 
museum has been built close by. Many 
old statues, monuments, inscriptions, and 
works of art have been placed in that 
building. A fit place of pilgrimage for 
people from every part of the world! I 
have seen Chinese and Japanese pilgrims 
there. 

A story is told of King Asoka’s young 
days. Before he decided to follow the way 
of life of the great master, Buddha, he 
had been living a life of pleasure and 
thoughtlessness. In one of his freakish 
moments, he conceived the idea of estab¬ 
lishing a hell on earth in his own city. He 
ordered a house of stone with iron gates 
to be built as soon as possible. Over the 
door he had a line inscribed thus: “ He 
who enters this house shall not get out of 
it.” 

Inside the building he had several 
ovens made. Big kettles and pans filled 


206 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

with oil were placed on the ovens. Any 
one who by curiosity or mistake entered 
the building was seized, thrown into the 
boiling pots, and scalded and burned alive. 
One day the king thought that lie would 
visit the place and see with his own eyes 
whether his orders were being carried out 
properly. The king was perfectly sat¬ 
isfied with all the arrangements made for 
conducting his earth-made hell. When he 
was about to depart from the building at 
the close of his inspection, a yellow-robed 
monk came in. The king was surprised 
at the audacity of the monk. He asked 
him whether he had noticed the inscription 
over the doorway. The monk wanted to 
know what it was. Thereupon the king 
commanded the keeper of the hell to ar¬ 
rest the monk and throw him into one of 
the boiling pots. When the monk was told 
the reason, he turned immediately to the 
king and said without any hesitation, 
“ Now, your Majesty, how dare you get 
out of the building? You have made the 


INDIAN CITIES 


207 


law and can you yourself violate it? ” He 
added further, “ I am willing to be boiled 
alive in obedience to the law made by you, 
because death has no terrors for me, but 
I shall not allow myself to be arrested and 
boiled alive in your hell unless you accom¬ 
pany me and uphold your law.” 

The king was so shamed by the monk’s 
bold statement that he ordered the imme¬ 
diate closing of the place and turned a 
disciple of the yellow-robed monk. Such 
is the story of the conversion of the great 
King Asoka of India, the Constantine of 
Buddhism. 

Benares is also famous for its silk. The 
beautiful cloth of gold and silver which is 
known all over India as “ Benarosi ” silk 
sari (woman’s cloth), is made here on 
hand-looms in the open air under the trees. 
“ Very beautiful it is to see the long lines 
of crimson, saffron, or purple, vibrating 
with iridescent tints in the checkered light 
of sun and shade, and the men and women 
passing up and down twirling the spindles 


208 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

from which the gossamer-like thread is un¬ 
wound.” The Hindu bride is usually 
dressed in this style of silk sari —made in 
Benares. 


Agra 

When Arjumand Banu Begum, the be¬ 
loved wife of Emperor Shah Jahan of 
Delhi, died in 1631, the emperor was so 
overwhelmed with grief that for weeks and 
months he did not attend to his state du¬ 
ties. Mumtaz Mahal, the charm of the 
palace, occupied his thoughts so much that 
the emperor resolved to create a memorial 
for his wife which would speak for itself 
for ages to come. 

The beautiful mausoleum which stands 
at Agra, in the heart of India, is known 
as the Taj Mahal. I like to describe it as 
“ Love’s Last Laurel.” When the em¬ 
press was lying on her death-bed she called 
to her side the Emperor of India, placed 
her hand on the head of Shan Jahan and 
made him promise that he would erect a 



The Taj Mahal. 


















INDIAN CITIES 209 

memorial to her that would surpass all 
others. 

The emperor kept his promise. He 
called all the best architects of the land, 
asked them to submit plans for a most 
beautiful building, that would stand on 
the banks of the Jumna and remind him 
of his lost, but not forgotten, wife. A 
story is told that when he was about to 
select the master-builder he ordered the 
candidates to meet one day in his garden 
in front of a large tank. There he sat on 
his throne. He had his servants bring 
loads of jewels, rubies, jade, silver, and 
gold. He put them in bags and then 
started throwing the bags into the tank. 
Everybody was stupefied, as they were en¬ 
tirely in the dark about the emperor’s 
plan. At last some of the candidates could 
not hold their tongues any longer. They 
cried out in amazement, “ What are you 
doing, oh, great emperor? Won’t you 
please stop wasting all those valuable 
jewels? ” The emperor asked those men 


210 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

to withdraw altogether, for he told them 
plainly that they would not be able to re¬ 
sist the temptation of gold, pearls, and 
jewels. They were not fit persons to be 
the builders of a great memorial because 
they were so worried about a little loss of 
wealth. 

The tenets of Islam (the religion of 
Mahomet, the prophet of Arabia) do not 
encourage portrait-painting. They are 
extremely Puritanical in their attitude re¬ 
garding the representation of human be¬ 
ings. Consequently there arose the strong 
desire on the part of the Mohammedans to 
create substitutes for pictures in the shape 
of mosques, memorials, and buildings. 
The city of Agra is full of such pictures 
in stone. This city was the creation of 
the best period in Mohammedan art in 
India. 

Agra has become famous for its Taj, 
which draws pilgrims from the four cor¬ 
ners of the earth. It took about seventeen 
years to complete the building. About 






INDIAN CITIES 


211 


twenty thousand men worked in the con¬ 
struction of it. The master-builder was 
Ustad Isa, but there were others from 
every part of India, Persia, Arabia, and 
Turkey who helped him. Stones, pearls, 
and jewels were brought from all parts of 
the then known world. “ The Charm of 
the Palace ” rests under the dome of the 
Taj. 

Approaching from the west, the visitor 
enters the quadrangle in front of a gate¬ 
way surrounded by arcades. There is a 
dliaramsliala , or serai , where travelers can 
stop and poor people can have food and 
shelter. An exquisitely beautiful building 
of white marble with a milk-white dome in 
the center is the main section, which stands 
inside a garden, following the old Tartar 
custom. The flowers and flowering shrubs 
stand as the symbol of life, while the 
solemnity created by the presence of the 
somber cypress reminds one of death. 
Here life and death meet in creating a new 
poem of love—a new picture more living 


212 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

than a painter’s picture could have ever 
been. 

The four minarets at the four comers 
appear like “ four tall court attendants at¬ 
tending the princess.” The building in 
outline is partly mirrored in a wide canal 
located at the end of a long court. The 
walls of the building are all covered with 
beautifully colored mosaic made by the in¬ 
setting of exactly cut and splendidly 
matched pieces of stones,—such as jade, 
onyx, agate, etc. The pavement is of 
white and black marble. Most of the walls 
are inlaid with the Islamic sacred texts 
from the Koran. The inscription over the 
principal arch of the entrance runs thus: 
“ Only those who are pure in heart can 
enter the gardens of Heaven.” 

The emperor and the empress lie in 
coffins of gold in a vault in the central 
chamber. A screen of marble tracery 
which surrounds the tombs is a wonderful 
piece of workmanship. The building with 
all its surroundings breathes a spirit of 


INDIAN CITIES 


213 


simplicity. One can have a very good 
view of the Taj, the Fort, and the river 
Jumna if one stands on the platform of the 
red sandstone mosque known as the Jam- 
mat Khana which is close by. 

I know people who have visited the Taj 
day after day and night after night. They 
love to muse on moonlit nights under the 
shades of the building and enjoy this cre¬ 
ation of beauty—“ a joy forever.” Such 
is Taj Mahal—“ Love’s Last Laurel,” or 
“ India’s noble tribute to the grace of In- 
dian womanhood, the Venus de Milo of 
the East.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


MY TRIP TO THE UNITED STATES OF 

AMERICA 

I always had a great desire to study 
and travel abroad. When I was about 
seven years old one of my cousins went to 
England to study at Oxford. The day 
before the boat sailed from the port of 
Calcutta, my father took me to the wharf 
to say good-bye to my cousin. I remem¬ 
ber that day very vividly. It was a great 
event in my young life. I went on board 
the British India Steam Navigation Com¬ 
pany’s boat. The atmosphere was so new 
that I felt puzzled. However, from that 
day, my mother tells me, I began saving all 
my coppers (paishas ), so that some day I 
might visit England. That was the be¬ 
ginning of a dream. 

I do not remember how long I con- 

214 


MY TRIP TO AMERICA 


215 


tinued saving the pennies. My mother, 
as well as I, knew full well that I was not 
a very steady saver of money. I had a 
peculiar weakness for all kinds of pens, 
pencils, paper, inks, erasers, and pictures, 
and whenever I had a few pennies I would 
run to the nearest stationery store and buy 
everything that my savings could pay for. 
How I was scolded by my mother in those 
days for squandering money! 

As years went by I went through 
school and two years of college. At the 
end of my college work I decided to de¬ 
vote myself to the social, religious, and 
educational work in connection with the 
progressive, socio-religious movement of 
which my father had been a mueh- 
respecled member. The experiences 
through which I had to go during a period 
of eight years between my leaving college 
and coming to the United States of Amer¬ 
ica were varied. I lived and worked in 
different parts of my home town, Cal¬ 
cutta, as well as outside. I worked among 


216 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 

the poorest children of the city and the 
country districts. But I had also oppor¬ 
tunities to work among the children of the 
rich and the middle classes. I slept many 
a night under the open sky near jungles 
and wooded hills. I also slept under the 
roof of a peasant’s hut and a prince’s pal¬ 
ace. In the midst of those changing ex¬ 
periences I always felt the call of the 
larger world. I felt more and more that 
some day I should visit the United States. 

Several of my friends had come to the 
States for study and travel. When my 
turn came at last, the world was passing 
through the most critical period of the 
World War. Many predicted my sure 
death on account of the submarine warfare 
which was the cause of the sinking of sev¬ 
eral vessels and loss of many lives every 
day. 

I was selected by a committee of repre¬ 
sentative Indians of Calcutta (Rabin¬ 
dranath Tagore, the great Indian poet be¬ 
ing one of the members of the committee) 



Noted author, Winner of Nobel Prize in Literature, 1913. Founder of Shautiniketan School for 
Boys and International University. Held in reverence by the Author 
of this book, who knows him well. 








MY TRIP TO AMERICA 


217 


to study for two years in one of the the¬ 
ological schools in Pennsylvania. Not¬ 
withstanding the protests of many friends 
whose solicitude for my safety was un¬ 
questionable, I sailed from Bombay, hav¬ 
ing crossed the country by train from Cal¬ 
cutta—a journey of about forty-two 
hours. On my way to the United States 
I stopped in England for about a week. 
Those were the days of Zeppelin raids 
over London. There was despair in every 
face. I tried to secure a passage by the 
first available boat for the United States. 
I sailed from Liverpool on an American 
liner. After a week’s voyage across the 
Atlantic, during which time we were leav¬ 
ing the Old World farther behind every 
day, we came in sight of land on a Sat¬ 
urday night. Our boat entered New York 
harbor the following morning. We 
sighted the great Statue of Liberty early 
in the morning. I had seen pictures of 
the Statue before I came to the States, 
but they were not so real as the Statue it- 


218 WHEN I WAS A BOY IN INDIA 


self. I felt assured that, after all, it was 
the United States of America. Some¬ 
times dreams certainly come true. 


THE END 


YULE-TIDE IN MANY LANDS ' 

Ij- MARY P. PRINGLE and CLARA A, URANN 

Fully illustrated and decorated 
12m® Cloth Price, $1,50 

T^HE varying forms of Christmas ob- 
* servance at different times and in 
different lands are entertainingly shown 
by one trained in choosing and present* 
ing the best to younger readers. The 
symbolism, good cheer, and sentiment 
of the grandest of holidays are shown 
as they appeal in similar fashion to those 
whose lives seem so widely diverse. The 
first chapter tells of the Yule-Tide of the 
ucients, and the eight succeeding chapters deal respectively 
ith the observance of Christmas and New Year’s, making 
) the time of “ Yule,” cr the turning of the sun, in England, 
erraanv, Scandinavia, Russia, France, Italy, Spain, and 
merica. The space devoted to each country has at leas 
le good illustration. 

“The descriptions as presented in this well-prepared volume make 
steresting reading for all who love to come in loving contact with others 
* their high and pure enjoyments.”— Hera/d-Presbyter , Cincinnati. 

“The way Yule-Tide was and is celebrated is told in a simple and 
Istructive ’/ay, and the narrative is enriched by appropriate poems and 
i cellent illustrations.”— Cleveland Plain Itealer. 

“It is written for young people and is bound to interest them for the 
bject is a universal one.”— American Church Sunday School Magazine , 

_________ ___, . |» ll ~ I Ml II I I I ■ III ■! Ml I 111 ■ 11 1 ■! ■! -_4‘ 

for sale by sII booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt 
of price by the publishers 

.othrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 



Boston 















TOP-OF-THE-WORLD STORIEi 

Translated from the Scandinavian Languages 

By EMILIE POULSSON and LAURA POULSSOl 

^Mustrated in two colors by Florence Liley Young 

T HESE stories of magic and adve 
ture come from the countries 
the “top of the world, 1 ' and w 
transport thither in fancy the child* 
who read this unusual book. Th< 
tell of Lapps and reindeer (even 
golden-horned reindeer!), of prino 
°nd herd-boy, of knights and wolve 
and trolls, of a boy who could b< 
hungry and merry at the same time— 
of all these and more besides! Miss Poulsson’s numerou. 
and long visits to Norway, her father’s land, and the fact tha 
she is an experienced writer for children are doubtless th< 
reasons why her translations are sympathetic and skilful, anc 
yet entirely adapted to give wholesome pleasure to the youn£ 
public that she knows so well. 

“In these stories are the elements of wonder and magic and adventure 
that furnish the thrill so much appreciated by boys and girls ten or twelve 
years of age c An aristocratic book—one that every young person will be 
perpetually proud of.’*— Lookout , Cincinnati , G. 

“In this book the children are transported to the land they iove bestj 
the land of magic, of the fairies and all kinds of wondernii Happenings, 
It is one of the best fairy story books ever published.”— Argus-Lsader y 
Sioux Falls , S. D. 

fc-BMEsr mu i —» i g g nwaau i rnwwi aaw i i ■ wm i —w i t— miw r- 

For sale by all booksellers or seat postpaid on receipt 
of price by the publishers 

Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 



Boston 























HONE ENTERTAINING 

Wfo&t to Do, and How to Do It 

.edited by WILUAfl E. CHENERY 
12mo Cloth 

"p'HXS book is the product of years of stuoy 
and the practical trying-out ot every con¬ 
ceivable form of indoor entertainment. All the 
games, tricks, puzzles, and rainy-day and social- 
evening diversions hav * 1 been practised by the 
editor; mam 7 are original with him, and many 
that are of course not original have been gr;atly 
improved by his mtelligence. All are told in the 
plainest possible way, and with excellent taste.' 
The book is well arrange! and finely printed. At 
a low price it places within the reach of all the 
very best of bright and jolly means of making 
lime what it ought to be-—the best p*ace for a good tim; by those of all 
;es. 

“The book is bright and up to date, ftill cf cheer and sunshine A good 
lEday book.’*— Reiiglou* j..lescope t Dayton, Ohio, 

*• For those who want new games for ihe hetne this book supplies the very best 
jood, clean, hearty games, full of fun and the spirit of laugh> — N I . Times, 

“Altogether the book is a perfect treasure-house for the young people’s rainy 
jy or social evening.*’— New Bedford, Standard. 

“ The arrangement is excel’ent and the instructions so simple that a cnild may 
How them. A book like this is just the thing for social evenings Christian 
mdeavor World. 

fi “A book giving the best, cieanes'. and brightest games ami tricks tor home 
ptertaining,”— Syracuse Herald. 

•' Jfheoook is clearly written and should prove ot value to every young ina.f 
110 aspires to be the life of the party.’*— Balti more Sum , 

“Onlv good, bright, clean games and tricks appeal tc Mr,, Chenery, and h, 
is told in Die simplest tend most comprehensive manner how to get up r amuse- 
i nts for every one.* "—Hartford Courunt,. 


rn «* Hr all ** 

SDTHROP. LEB & SttEPARIi CO- BOSTON 







HOME 


1 

Enter- 

- 

1 

TA1NING 

±r- 


! AMUSEMENTS 
! FOR EVERY ONE 

WILLIAM E CHENERY 



























New Editions of Two Favorite Book 


THE LANCE OF KANANA 


A STORY OF ARABIA 


By HARRY W. FRENCH (“Abd 

Two-co5or illustrations by Garrett 

L/"ANANA, a Bedouin youth, though excelling 
^ in athletic prowess, is branded, even by his 
father, as a coward because he prefers the 
humble lot of a shepherd to the warrior’s career 
that he, the son of a sheik known as the “Terror 
of the Desert,” was expected to follow. “Only 
for Allah and Arabia will I lift a lance and take 
a life,” he maintained. Opportunity to prove 
his worth soon comes, and the supposed coward, 
understood too late, becomes in memory a 
national hero. 

“The stirring story of the loyalty and self-sacrifice of 
a Bedouin boy is weil worth the attractive new edition in 
which it now presents its rare picture of fervid patri¬ 
otism.”— Continent, Chicago. 



el Ardavan”) 
Net, $1.25 


THE ADVENTURES 
OF MILTIADES PETERKIN PAUL 
By JOHN BROWNJOHN 

Frontispiece by John Goss Illustrated by “Boz” 


THE ADVENTURES 
MLTIADES PETERKIN. PAUL 



L-JERE is a child classic reissued in a fin 

* and handsomer form, in response to t 
persistent demand of those who know t! 
mirth-provoking quality of the exploits 
the ingenious small boy named Miltiad 
Peterkm Paul and spoken of as “a gr< 
traveler, although he was small.” Whoe% 
has once enjoyed the story of the restle 
little lad who imitated Don Quixote, and d 
many other things, is permanently charm' 
by it. 

“ THis youthful Don Quixote, with his travels a 
exploits, drives ‘dull care* * away from the eldt 
and delights the juniors.”— Watchman , N. T. 


For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt 
of price by the publishers 


Lot 


T#(f epard 


Co, 


Bostoi 































- ^ 


4 ^ . , 8 C. " ~ " A \ 

(V * * V * <S> AV 

- JTw/yZ*- * *«. V * • 

\ 0 


^ t > 



'&' -* CL^ • /> T 

k-^^A/ \ a* r^ ✓ . < 

* • i i * At ... ^ * a n o 

V > A* 





-> ^mmii^ o c' 

•>\ ,> ,^ 3 i^' * aV ^ 

i d* s ^Ouw*** v ^V- * . 

A O, */ 7 Ts s ^ v' 

£ C 0 N C * ^O r<? .* VlB * ^ A N C 0 * C 

*£m?> * '*+. .4 K 
1 * * © 

* 


$ 


& 


,v ,. 

V X ^', J'r 


* 

J if> <$\ 



Vj? 

<\F * ^ "o ) 

* •■- 

» -k ' '<£- > 

y 0 » 

v ^ A\ 

o ^ 

p 

a\ f 0 n c ^ 


aN ^ <Ra 

^ .* AA 

\WnNL. ^ 

•^\l!..^ -A 

1 I-jk^ « 




» 

.., v 'V, ', 

’ A 0 ' C o, *■ * , „•' #' %■ *• . 

^ <($ ° JpSffl® - *£ 

^ °A'^\k * *> 

V' o* v * * ** * 
c?’ v• '•y*i % 

s te^rr /?s * ^ aN 

: 1 1 °\ 



j, •> 

^ * 0 N 

A ^ A* 

< % <£ * 

V ^> ® A\\\«^?//// -, 

‘ ^ V % % 

A 

£ .‘!I‘% -o 

^ . 

' ^ 0 V 

>,°°c 

V>-’/ ,.„ °v 

' - / A „ a'. C i 

* '*t» ** J\WA, ° 1 

r ^ ^ .-^' v >/ ' ^ ° 

»’ ca 5 o » * ^Ca -* ° 

/a- ■ %% y ° • x >V" • % V' * • s v° 

A ^o' 

\*°<. 

* 

CK k- 

V * 



- * * I' * \^ s 

©. V a 





V A n 



V v a, 

° . » 


^ c oN 


* "N , , B w * s 

o' .» j&lr^-^ -» A V s o * 

^ « 7 r« .<o v 


V*; 


c *©• t : 8 




* AV </» 

^ * , 

^ C o N c ♦%>■'** S S 0 ^° s ^ 1 8 

v!^ * f c> (V s 

-L-S.'K'W - V> V 



<>* V 

o 0 X 







o, x* A 


V* >• 

„ %/^ s .., "e-' 

• % v '■'IttsL** Z>' * 

o 4 o> JlvM^v _ .a. <V* 


&% ■«. O 


_ <P A v c o N C 

\ ^ * t V* 5 ^v 

* p. * 

=> $ °* 

S 0 o "■ 

a 0 ' c 0 , 

* * ^ * 0 a ^ 

* ^ C X ** «» A. 'P’r 0 

*>V ,A\\/?sS /Zh O xf‘ „\A 

S ® KAewr /7 ., t/' i<» > 



A' A c 0 N c « V' * * ° r^° .<■ 1 • « 




-£> - muxxx 

^ ,\\>^ ** 

^ y ^ 

^ ^ A» y- 

*- %#* : 



\V s * * / *> * 3 N 0 

V K S LoJ"s > 



* % 

*? r<> ,«, * 

® °^p ^ 

z z 

° <v>^ ° 

* W> Vf> u» „ _. - , 

•v a V '- * » A 

<* y 0 o .k "* \ ^ 

_ ft v V ' / c 0 N c < 

- ° - 0 t*m>z +^ *<* .’isa* 

: ♦bo' ^ v ■ 

^ ,. *m^«> j?®-* 

■v* o ^ ^ .' 0 0 0 ** 

»..'* ^ ... V *- -’ -'° ° 


> V s' 






M' V «, 0 # » I ^ 

V _> a * 0 .*o\\ . 

“•- %. V '^•^ v 

-. e j, 4 “ 4 %. * .v ^ 

^ , t L^ % °0 fp .V* 

^ o' * 


DOBBS BROS. 

IBRARY BINDING -1 '?-' .V 

H W ^ v* = 

\Y 7 2 * * A 


' 1 ' *" ^ Z > " 

F. AUGUSTINE 


FLA. 0 ,0 ! 


.V ^ 

^^32084 ; 


4 \J C 0 , * 

^ * Y " 0 A ^ 

6 ? < ‘_ 'f > ^ 



0 N 0 




























